When She Says
by Kegel
Summary: Greg and Sara deal with a trial, centrifugal forces, and the aftermath of lies and fear. SaraGreg
1. Silence

_**Disclaimer: **__**I do not own CSI or any of its characters.**_

_**A/N: Hi, I'm back. This time around with the sequel of "Something Happens". I hope you'll enjoy!  
**_

_**Summary: Greg and Sara deal with a trial, centrifugal forces, and the aftermath of lies and fear. SaraGreg**_

* * *

**When She Says**

Chapter 1: Silence

The lab was quiet; the only sound that could be heard was the humming coming out of the different laboratories. Nick could see him already from a fair distance, bent over one of the tables in the layout room.

In the past months they had managed to regain friendly ground between them. Well, Greg had always stayed fairly friendly. Nick on the other hand had become rather hostile towards the younger man. With Sara out of the picture, the tension between them had diminished even though they were still far away from their former close friendship.

Of course, Greg still did not trust Nick one hundred percent, especially not on the Charlie issue. And Nick had still not forgiven the younger man completely, even though he had become softer on the topic, now that Greg was not together with Sara anymore.

Back when that had been the case, Nick had not been able to stand that Sara seemed to have forgiven Greg that easily, that she had let Greg get close to her despite that it had been partly his fault that Sara had been hurt, and it had actually happened because of him.

Nick was approaching Greg now who did not look up, before Nick had already stopped next to him. Greg seemed fairly surprised, obviously having been deeply absorbed in his work.

"Got anything?" he asked Nick, glancing at the other man briefly before turning his look back at the table in front of him.

"No," Nick shook his head. "I just… Don't you want to go home and catch some sleep before… you know?" he suggested.

Both of them knew what he was talking about. In the morning Greg was supposed to give his testimony in Charlie's trial. It was actually expected that Sara would be heard soon after, but that was not the real issue. It was more so the extent of Greg's involvement that was the problem. He was not going to get away not mentioning it. And everybody knew how bad that would make him look.

When Sara would have the opportunity to say anything, to correct any impression, the damage could already be done. If she intended to correct anything at all, considering the developments of the recent months. And then there was Nick. And Greg's lack of faith in what Nick would testify when he would tell about the day Charlie had turned up at Greg's place and had taken both Greg and Sara hostage. Or only Sara, with Greg's help, as detractors would say.

"Grissom didn't give me off," Greg returned now. "We're swamped here. He can't afford me going home just to catch some Z's during my usual hours."

Nick nodded. Grissom was not too soft on the younger man. It had basically been Sara's begging that had brought Greg back to the graveyard shift. Well, Sara had always angrily denied to having begged Grissom, but Nick assumed that she had at least asked him to bring Greg back.

"It's going to be alright, Greg," Nick tried to assure him now. Greg waited with his answer for a moment, attending to the evidence in front of him instead.

"I don't think you're even supposed to talk to me about that," he returned, sounding calm, but also somewhat careful. Nick nodded, only slightly taken aback. He could have expected Greg's reaction.

"I didn't want to-,"

"It's alright," Greg interrupted him, smiling even. Nick had certainly not intended to bring any of them into trouble, so it was not quite fair of Greg, if he came down hard on the Texan who had simply cared and asked.

He did not think the caring was necessary though. Greg had it planned out well. He would finish his work in time, would take a shower still at the lab and change into the suit that was hanging in his locker, before leaving for court. He had done this often enough. Since he had become a CSI, he had testified on a regular basis.

And today would not be any different.

It would be different. There was no question about that.

It was personal now.

Greg was nervous, and right now he was having a hard time hiding it from Nick. He had to remember that he was not the defendant, he was just a witness. The trial was not about him.

And still he could not help feeling guilty. He wondered if it would shine through his testimony. He knew that if Sara was there, she would have made sure that he did not feel like this, which was ironic, considering that she was the one he was feeling guilty about.

He did not want to think about Sara although it had become somewhat less painful to think about her lately. He had found himself able to think of her rather calmly and neutrally. But that was probably because he had not seen her.

Nick had quietly started working next to him, and Greg was thankful that he had not tried to bring up the topic of the trial again. Greg was not sure if he wanted to talk about it with anybody. He certainly would have wanted to with Sara, but that was out of question. But Nick was not the right one for that conversation.

Everything about the trial, what had happened, had been the reason of the tension and actual fight that had been going on between them for a long time. It had cooled off by now, now that Sara was not around who had basically been the tinder for the fire that had broken out between them, even though she had not intended to, had even tried to calm them down for a while. Until she had given up on that.

Greg did not even notice how the time passed, and when he looked up at the clock the next time, he realized that it was already so late that he had to hurry up a bit.

"Uh, I gotta go," he told Nick. "Do you mind finishing this up for me?" he pointed at his unfinished work.

"No problem," Nick nodded at him, and Greg left the room quickly, taking off his gloves.

He came out of the shower fifteen minutes later, trying to bring his hair in order. He changed into his suit quickly, taking some glances into the mirror though, making sure he was looking properly. On his way out of the locker room, Warrick caught sight of him and came up to him slowly.

"Hey, how's it going?"

Greg went with his hand over his hair one more time. "I'm fine," he answered. "Bit nervous." So he had admitted to Warrick what he had not to Nick.

"Nah," Warrick brushed it off. "You're going to be alright. Just tell them what happened to make sure that guy gets what he deserves."

Greg nodded. "Yeah."

Warrick smiled, turning more serious a moment later. "Do you think-?"

"I have no idea," Greg shrugged, guessing that the other man wanted to ask after Sara. Greg was not able to tell him any more about Sara than about any other person living in Vegas. Warrick nodded and Greg walked off with a short goodbye.

Of course he had wondered if Sara would be there, even though he had not really allowed himself thinking about it. He did not know what he would do if he saw her. Probably the same thing he had done when that had happened the last time. Nothing.

Nothing was what was between them. It was not even comparable to the short time they had not been talking after the truth had come out about Charlie, and Greg had been forced to work as a lab tech again. Back then, there had at least been tension, longing. And he had seen her sometimes.

Now there was nothing. Well, longing maybe. He did not know anymore. He did not know whether he missed her or not. It was strange. After seeing each other almost daily for years, this was suddenly not the case anymore.

She would have made him feel better. He knew that. She would have made sure he did not blame himself. She had mostly been able to keep those thoughts in toe that were wearing him down. She had always said that she felt save with him. How was she feeling now? Greg did not think there could be a more difficult question.

The drive to the courthouse barely registered in his brain. He had driven there often enough so that he did not even need to think about where he had to go. He was well in time and managed to blend in with the other people who made their way into the building.

On the one hand, she blended in well, too. On the other hand, Greg could not have missed her.

He saw her from behind, walking up the stairs. Her hair had grown longer. The fact that he noticed that told him only more so that he had not seen her for a long time. She did not turn around, but he was taking in her figure, following her, the distance between them not getting smaller though.

Greg almost forgot what he was actually there for. His eyes were on Sara, and although he had found his way to the correct room just by following her, he had to force himself to take his mind and his eyes off her. When he walked into the room where he was supposed to wait, he took his gaze away from her, watching some of the other people in the room. He knew that she was standing at the other side of the room; he was tempted to look over to her again, but he could not do this now. He had to focus on the reason why he was here. He could not let himself be distracted by her presence.

And at the end, he glanced over to her again. And like it had to come, she caught his sight. Her expression was unreadable at first; then he saw the wondering in her face, before she suddenly smiled a small smile at him that Greg returned, feeling calmer now than he had during the whole day. And closer to her than he had in months.

**TBC**


	2. Sides

_**A/N: There'll be quite some of recollection of what happened in the first few chapters of 'Something Happens', since they are having the trial after all. I hope this won't bore you out lol. I also hope the writing won't be too confusing. When there's a sentence in italics it means that Greg (or whoever) is starting to remember a past event. So, enough **__**forewords…**_

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**Chapter 2****: Sides**

Sara did not make a move to walk over to him. Neither of them would break that arrangement they had. It wouldn't be helpful now. It would actually be harming. Both of them had other issues to care for. Greg had to make sure that everybody learned what had happened so that Charlie would never harm Sara again. And he had to worry how he himself would come out of everything. He could not hope for Sara to help him.

She had helped him in the past. She had asked Grissom for his transfer back to graveyard. Grissom had given his okay, and Greg and Sara had been back working together.

_It had been nice while it had lasted…_

Greg had been happy to be back at graveyard. As in Grissom's and Sara's agreement, he and Sara were not assigned to any cases together, at least not alone, as Grissom hold the opinion that it was not appropriate at least not until the trial was over and everything would go back to normal.

Grissom had warned Sara that she would have to testify against Charlie and that there was the chance of Greg's involvement being brought up. Greg had always known that this was not only a chance, but a fact.

Nevertheless he and Sara had been happy to work together at the lab again, complementing the time they shared together off work. In retrospection it was certainly the best time Greg had had in the last couple of years.

Part of it had ended when Hodges had been walking into the AV room where both Greg and Sara were working.

"Sara."

Sara looked up to Hodges. "Yeah?"

"Ecklie wants to see you in his office," Hodges told her grimacing. Sara frowned, but shrugged.

"I'm just going to finish this up here." She glanced at Greg who had stopped working, looking at Hodges wondering.

"I'm sorry," Hodges returned sounding actually this way. "He said you should hand over anything to Greg and come straight to his office."

Sara seemed to have turned a bit paler. She tried to keep her expression unreadable though. Greg looked at her worriedly.

"Why…?" he started. Sara did not look at him, but packed the clothes she had been analyzing, shoving the bag over to him then. Hodges had left as inconspicuously as it was possible for him.

Sara moved to leave as well. "Sara?" Greg called after her. She turned around to him. "It's going to be okay," he told her. Whatever it was. She smiled briefly, before she walked away.

She had not returned. Greg had continued working for a while, his mind not really on his task. When Sara had not been back after an hour, he had set out to search for her. Ecklie's office had been the first stop. He had been wondering what the lab director had been doing there at that time of the night in the first place. Now the room was deserted. Sara was not there, but neither was Ecklie.

Greg looked around the lab, but did not find Sara anywhere. He did not want to ask anybody if they had seen her, not wanting to cause any rumors as to her absence and his search. Finally he took out his cell phone, pressing the key that dialed the last called number. After a few seconds he knew that her phone was out.

Greg sighed, guessing that whatever had happened had frustrated Sara so much that she did not even want to talk to him. He checked the time and figured that he should return to work, as little as he wanted to.

He kept checking his phone, hoping for any sign of Sara. It did not come until the end of his shift. Greg was not really sure what to do. He and Sara had not made any plans for the day until she had left for Ecklie's office.

Greg left the lab and made his way to Sara's place. He felt slightly uncomfortable. What if Ecklie had done what Greg feared he had done? The fact that Sara had been told to hand over any evidence to Greg did not bode well. Greg figured that he could not do much more than be there for her.

He walked up to her apartment in a somewhat rainy mood, ringing the bell twice. The door was not opened. Greg stood there wondering for a few moments, until the door of the neighboring apartment opened and a young woman walked out of it, locking her door behind her.

"Sara's not at home," she said with a look at Greg. "I saw her leaving earlier."

"Oh," Greg was surprised. "Thanks," he nodded, walking away slowly. So where had Sara gone? On his way back to his car, Greg flipped his cell phone open, again trying to call Sara. This time around she even picked up and Greg breathed a sigh of relief that he had not even known he'd been holding.

"Hey, Sara, where are you?" he asked quickly.

"At the lab," she replied simply.

"Oh, good. I mean… what's up? What happened?" he wanted to know.

"Can we talk about that later?" Sara returned. "Come over tonight, and we'll talk, okay?"

"Okay…" Greg started slowly.

"Talk to you later," she said and ended the call, leaving Greg behind wondering. He made his way home, still thinking about what had happened and what Sara had said. Actually she had not said much. She had sounded quite well though, so Greg figured there was no point in worrying.

He went straight to bed once he was home, curious to know what was the matter with Sara, but tired enough to actually get several hours of sleep. At 7 PM he was back in front of her place. This time Sara opened up, letting him in.

He sat down on her couch, looking at her expectantly. "So what happened?"

Sara shrugged, and Greg wondered if she was really as calm as this gesture wanted to indicate.

"Ecklie put me to days," she said simply.

"He did what?" Greg exclaimed.

"Transferred me to days," Sara shrugged again. She did not look too happy, but did not make any move to complain about this new arrangement either.

"Why?" Greg asked helplessly.

"He just did," she returned, dropping onto the couch next to him. "He said now that you're back on graveyard – on Grissom's request – he'd like me to work at days." She shook her head. "He also said something about how it looks… you and me working together and everything." She still sounded very calm, way too calm in Greg's opinion.

"And this is okay with you?"

She looked at him directly. "Greg, what am I supposed to do? And actually it's nice to work days for a change, you know." She grimaced. "That I'm answering to Ecklie now isn't that great, but I'll manage."

"I'm sorry," Greg said quietly, but smiled then. "I never thought you'd take something like this so calmly."

Sara raised her eyebrows. "Mmh, maybe you don't know me after all."

Greg grinned. "Oh, I do know you." He leaned in, luring her for a moment, before he kissed her lightly and she chuckled. "Why didn't you want to tell me about it on the phone then?"

Sara's expression got more serious and she drew a bit away from him. "It wasn't a good moment to talk."

"It's okay," he said.

"Yeah."

Greg leaned back to her, drawing her closer to him, and Sara smiled again.

* * *

Greg remembered that day when he saw Sara smiling at him from the other side of the room at the court house. Much had happened since then; many things had changed, especially between them. 

Greg was told to sit down and wait until he would be called in to testify. Sara had seated herself some distance away from him and had brought out what looked like a forensic journal. She had not opened it yet, but glanced at Greg again, before she looked away when she saw that he was watching her.

Now she opened her journal, browsing it briefly before she started reading. Greg kept watching her for some more moments, before he took his gaze away, closing his eyes and breathing out slowly. He was not feeling as neutral now as his attitude towards her had recently seemed to be.

It seemed to take forever and it were actually hours that went by until he was finally called. He glanced a last time at Sara before he left the room, but she did not look up. Ordering his clothes one final time, Greg walked into the court room. The amount of people in there was assessable. It had obviously been achieved that the case was kept pretty low profile, at least more than one would have expected. There was a kidnapping involved after all. And two crime scene investigators, one of them the victim, and the other one…

Greg did not really know what he should call himself in this whole mess.

**TBC**


	3. Scenes

_**A/N: I had taken a leaf out of WitchGirl's book lol and am a little ahead in writing so that I can update on a regular basis. No idea how**__** long I can keep that up though, school's sucking it out of me right now. Anyway, I hope for the best. :D **_

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**Chapter 3****: Scenes**

He knew the prosecutor and he knew the defendant. Who had coincidentally used to be his friend. Greg sat down and went through the usual procedure. The first questions were easy; they did not concern the actual happenings.

That would start soon enough though.

"Mr. Sanders, could you tell me about the day Mr. Brady came to your apartment?" the prosecutor asked.

Like now.

Greg leaned closer to the microphone, making sure he was understandable. "Well, it was my birthday," he started. "Mr. Brady came to my place in the morning. He told me he'd arranged a trip as a surprise."

"Did you know at this point about the 'surprise'?"

Greg frowned slightly, shaking his head. "I thought he meant the trip. I'd never thought…"

"What happened then?"

Greg rubbed his forehead. "We went to his car and drove off. Then Charlie – Mr. Brady – started to become agitated, telling me how he's not sure he did the right thing." He swallowed. "I still thought he was talking about the trip. When we arrived at the cabin, he kept going on and on how 'it was wrong'."

"And you did not know what he was talking about?"

Greg shook his head again. "He kept glancing at the car. At the trunk more precisely." Greg closed his eyes for a moment, remembering the shock he had suffered back then. "I wanted to check why he was doing that and opened the trunk."

"And found…?"

"Sara," Greg replied quietly, swallowing. Sara. Even now, several months later, he could not believe that had happened to her. Because of him.

* * *

_There had been somebody else who had not been willing to believe that._

Nick.

A few days after Sara had been transferred to dayshift, Nick was catching up with her in the hallway of the crime lab. Sara was focused on a paper in her hands, so she did not notice him at first.

"Sara," he called out to her. She looked up, catching his sight.

"Hey, Nick."

"How are you doing?" he wanted to know, walking along with her.

"I'm fine, thanks," she smiled.

Nick did not really smile back. "So you took the fall for Greg after all?"

Sara's smile changed into a deep frown quickly. She looked away from him, starring forward along the corridor instead.

"What do you mean?" she asked him sharply.

"Your transfer to days," he clarified.

"I like working at days," Sara replied, still not looking back at him.

Nick chuckled. "Yeah, I'm sure you like working for Ecklie."

"That's none of your business," she returned annoyed. She stopped, turning around to him now. "Look, it wasn't my idea to go to days-"

"So you actually took the fall for Greg?" Nick inserted quickly.

"- but this has nothing to do with Greg," Sara stated firmly. "And there's no reason anybody would need to take the fall for him."

Sara looked at her feet. She was still aggravated that Nick was taking this out so hard on Greg. He did not like that she and Greg were together, after everything that had happened. If the whole Charlie disaster had never occurred, Nick would have most likely agreed happily to their relationship, but now he was holding the opinion that Sara had been hurt because of Greg, and Greg was even taken advantage of it. She had told Nick several times that this was not the case. He had not listened. And Sara could not really be angry at his protective streak.

* * *

It had become warm. Greg could see that the sun outside was almost at its highest point. He was sweating in his suit and feeling uncomfortable.

It was nothing in comparison to what Sara must have gone through. Greg had never asked her, if she had woken up in that trunk of Charlie's car. He was not even sure how long she had been in there, until he had found her. He could not even imagine the fear she must have gone through. And later, he had added only more to it.

Greg had almost missed the next question the prosecutor was asking.

"In what condition was Ms. Sidle when you found her in the car?"

Greg looked at the man quickly. He remembered only now again that it was not he who was on trial.

"She was unconscious," he replied. "Her hands and feet were bound." Greg tensed at the memory. He looked around briefly in the courtroom, if only to calm himself. Most of the faces were unknown to him, but at the far end of the room he suddenly detected one face that he knew very well. Now that their shift was well over, Grissom had made his way to court too, following the proceedings that concerned two of his CSIs. Well, one of his CSIs and one former. His expression was unreadable to Greg and the younger man did not look into his direction very long, but returned his gaze to the prosecutor.

"I tried to lift her out of the trunk," Greg continued his statement.

"What did Mr. Brady do?"

Greg frowned. He had not paid attention to Charlie back then. His mind had only been on Sara, so the question of the prosecutor caught him off guard.

"I don't really know. I didn't watch him," he admitted. "I mean, Sara was the only one I could think of. It wasn't easy to get her out, bound and all. I didn't want to hurt her."

He had never wanted to hurt her. And nevertheless he had.

"What did you do then?"

"I lay her onto the ground and told Charlie that we needed to get her to the hospital."

"She was still unconscious at that time?"

Greg nodded. "I didn't know if she was hurt. I just wanted to bring her to the hospital, but Charlie didn't want to." His so-called friend had been afraid that Sara would turn them in.

"What did he do?"

"He said we needed to get rid of her," Greg replied quietly. "He threatened to kill her. He had a gun." His only instinct had been to protect Sara. He could not even imagine what he would have done if anything had happened to her. He would have been an accessory in murder, and he probably would not have fought it.

"Had he already been armed before?" came the next question.

Greg shook his head. "No, I mean, I don't know where he had the gun from. I didn't pay attention before."

"Go on, please."

It was not only the heat now. His stomach was getting worse and worse, too. But Greg nodded and went on.

"He said he'd kill her and since there was no connection between him and Sara, they'd never get him." For a second his glance went to Charlie who was sitting next to his lawyer. Then Greg looked back at the prosecutor.

"But you could prevent that?"

Greg frowned again slightly. "I told him that since there's no connection to us, we should let her go. I pleaded him that if he was my friend, he shouldn't harm her."

"But actually there was a connection between you and Ms. Sidle?"

"Yes." Greg nodded. He had done everything to prevent Charlie from learning that, afraid he would freak and kill Sara if he knew.

"What is the relationship between you and Ms. Sidle?"

"We're co-workers and friends." They might have been more than friends in the past, but the question had been asked in the present, Greg thought. And considering this, his response that they were friends was not even that true anymore.

"Mr. Brody did not know that at that point of time?"

"No, he didn't."

"Could you please go on and tell us what happened next?"

Greg nodded. Now they were going into the difficult part of this. Although nothing of this statement had felt easy so far. Greg wondered if he had ever really said that he was sorry. He remembered apologizing to Sara. More than once. But had he ever really told her, ever really made her clear how sorry he was?

He swallowed. "Sara was waking up." What would have been a relief in any other situation, had only caused a dilemma for Greg back then. He had had only seconds to decide what to do. "I figured if she wakes up, she'd yell out that knows me, of course. I was afraid Charlie would freak and kill her." Sara was probably still sitting in the waiting room, presumably reading her forensic journal. She had seemed so calm. Greg wondered how she was doing it. And he wondered how she had still been able to trust him enough to get into a relationship with him. A relationship that was over now, but had still happened.

"What did you do?" the prosecutor reminded him to continue.

"I gagged her," Greg went on. A murmur went through the room. It was not surprising. Most of those people had not expected Greg's active role in this. Greg reminded himself to keep breathing and continued talking, the memory clear in his mind. "She opened her eyes and stared at me." Would he ever be able to forget the expression in her eyes?

Greg glanced at Grissom at the other site of the room. The man's face was still unreadable. He knew of course all of what Greg was telling.

Greg wished Sara would be sitting in the courtroom, too. He did not want her having to listen to all the details of the kidnapping again; it would be bad enough when she would have to testify herself. But Greg wished he could look at her and assure himself that the expression that was burned into his mind was not still there. That the fear he had seen was not still there. That she was back to being confident and dauntless Sara.

**TBC**


	4. Sights

_**A/N: I'm glad you liked it so far. **__**I'm still working on writing this ahead so I can update regularly. Looking at my other stories, I hope to get back to them as well one day. Looking at all the papers I need to write for class… never mind. On we go…**_

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**Chapter 4****: Sights**

It seemed to go on forever.

Greg told how Charlie had made him bring Sara inside the cabin, how they had left her there and walked outside, how he tried to convince Charlie to drive her to the hospital. Charlie had suggested dropping her off somewhere. Greg had been against that back then, only to regret it when Charlie had wanted to kill Sara just to get rid of the problem.

Greg's urgent pleas had made him suspicious that Greg knew Sara after all. He had dropped the idea after some moments much to Greg's relief who had still been hoping that he could convince Charlie to let Sara go, under the assumption that she did not know either of them, since Charlie apparently did not know about the possibilities the crime lab would have had anyway to get to him.

"What happened then?"

Greg closed his eyes for a moment, remembering the scene clearly. "He told me she was all mine." That was why Charlie had taken Sara after all. He had thought he would do Greg a favor. Charlie had thought he had taken a random brunette woman, not knowing that Greg and Sara knew each other.

"Did Mr. Brody tell you why he had abducted Ms. Sidle?" the prosecutor wanted to know.

"He did it for me," Greg replied quietly. This knowledge was worse enough, only aggravated by the fact that he had been forced to hurt her. He trembled slightly for a moment, before he looked back at the man in front of him.

"Did he act on your order or wish?"

"No, of course not!" Greg stated louder now. "I wish I had known about it before… I could've stopped him…"

Greg did not even know who had initiated it, but a few moments later, a break was announced, and Greg stood up, leaving the stand for now. He walked out into the hallway, looking for a vending machine in dear need of a cold drink.

A minute later he opened the can, cooling his dry throat. He wandered along the hallway that was filled with people. He took another gulp from his drink and that was when he almost bumped into her. He stopped dead, spilling some of the liquid.

"Sorry, I didn't see you," he blurted out.

The first words he had said to her after a long while.

Sorry, I didn't see you.

This was certainly not his favorite day.

"It's okay," she replied, smiling faintly. "Well, your suit's not…"

Greg looked down at himself, but saw that the soda was not visible. He was thankful that he was wearing a dark suit. Otherwise it would have been a highlight to decorate it with spilled soda.

"It's okay."

"Good," she said, before she turned away with another small smile and walked back into the direction of the waiting room. Greg looked after her perplexed, cursing himself. She vanished out of sight. Greg sighed, making his way to the restroom where he cooled his face as well and made sure that his clothes did not look too bad. He hated it.

* * *

_Sara had seemed very tense in his arms that __one night. _.

"Is anything wrong?" Greg whispered into her ear. He could feel her breathing next to him.

"No," she said shortly. He reached out to stroke her hair softly.

"Are you sure?"

She turned around a bit further, facing away from him now, and he laid his arms around her chest, kissing her hair.

"Just a minor disagreement with Nick," she admitted.

Greg nodded slightly, invisible to her. He could not see her face, for once because it was dark, but also because she was lying with her back to him, but he guessed that the disagreement had not been that minor. She apparently did not want to talk about it which strengthened his guess that he knew very well what it had been about. Him.

He cuddled some more and she finally relaxed somewhat. When he whispered another question, he noticed that it was because she had fallen asleep.

* * *

The time seemed to fly by until he was seated again, more or less ready to continue his testimony. It was already in the afternoon now and the sun had started to vanish at the other side of the building.

"Could you please tell us what happened after you and Mr. Brody talked outside the cabin?"

Greg nodded. "I went inside and closed the door behind me. I was hoping to find a way to get Sara out."

"But you didn't?"

No, he had not. Greg had been mulling over this fact countless times, wondering if he could have done anything different.

He shook his head. "I asked Sara to stay quiet, so I could remove the gag. We talked briefly and I went back to the door to see if the coast was clear." It had not been. "I think somebody pushed me against the door then. I hit my head. I don't know anymore after that."

"Do you know who pushed you?"

"Well, I didn't see him, but I guess it was Charlie. He was the only one around. I mean, it certainly wasn't Sara. She was still bound after all, and it wouldn't make sense, unless she would have wanted to knock me out to get away from me, but since she was tied up…" Greg rambled nervously, stopping then, when he realized that he was not making much sense and his rambling did not do any good.

"Do you know what happened afterwards?" the prosecutor wanted to know.

Greg shook his head. "I woke up in my apartment and found a letter from Charlie, telling me he had taken care of everything."

Taken care of everything. Gotten rid of Sara.

Greg had not known what Charlie had done, but had feared the worst. And it had come close to the worst in reality.

* * *

_When Greg woke up, he found Sara still sleeping soundly in his arms._

He loved the feeling of warmth and calmness this brought over him every time he woke up this way.

"I love you," he said quietly.

Now he saw her smiling in the light of the early morning. He liked it when they could still spend the night together, like this night when he had been off work. Sara would leave for the lab soon. But now she turned around next to him and kissed him softly.

"I need to get up," she said.

"Mmh, stay a few more minutes."

"Okay," she agreed, kissing him another time. What seemed to Greg only some blissful moments later, she moved away from his arms.

"I hate to say this, but I really need to get up now," she told him, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed and standing up. Greg sat up in the bed, rubbing his eyes.

"There's breakfast in the kitchen," he called after her, when she walked out of his bedroom. Reluctantly he got up as well, following her.

* * *

The prosecutor had finished his questions, promising to come back to Greg later to ask about the day when Charlie had come to Greg's place again. Now the defending lawyer had his turn. He asked Greg several questions about the relationship between him and Charlie and it took a while until Greg had finally answered all of them sufficiently so that the lawyer moved on to the actual happenings.

"You told us that you left the cabin after talking briefly with Ms. Sidle. Can you tell us what your conversation was about?" he wanted to know.

"We didn't talk long. I told her that it wasn't me who had done that and she asked me to get her out," Greg accounted.

"And then you left?"

"I only went out of the door. I didn't get any farer."

The lawyer walked closer to him. "You said earlier you didn't see the person who pushed you against the door."

Greg nodded.

"But you 'guessed' who it was?"

Greg frowned. "Yeah, I'm sure it was Charlie. He was there. He had a reason to knock me out. He brought me home when I was unconscious."

"You didn't see the person who pushed you?"

"I didn't," Greg confirmed.

"So you don't know for sure who it was?"

"I don't, but-"

"Do you know for sure who brought you to your place?" the lawyer went on.

"Charlie did," Greg stated convinced. Where was the other man going with this?

"How do you know that?" was the next question.

Greg was quick to answer. He had mentioned that, had he not? "I found his letter in that he told me so."

"How do you know the letter was from Mr. Brody?"

Greg guessed that 'because there was his name under it' was not a good enough answer. But everybody had to see that nothing else made sense. Why would it not have been Charlie?

"It was signed by him. And who else would have written it?"

"It is not my task to answer this, Mr. Sanders," the lawyer replied. Greg stared at him, wondering which of the two of them had lost his mind, or if this was just another round of rationality.

**TBC**


	5. Steps

_**Thank you for your feedback :)**_

* * *

**Chapter 5****: Steps**

The suit was adjourned soon. Greg was relieved to get out of the stand, still confused about the last questions.

He felt bad that Sara had probably been waiting the whole time for her turn. They had expected her to testify today as well. Now it would be her turn tomorrow, unless something else interfered.

And Greg wondered if he should come, too. His shift would probably be over soon enough for him to make it. But he felt like he had not the right to watch her giving her testimony. Would it not make everything harder for her, if she had to talk while she saw him watching her?

Greg walked out of the courtroom with the other people pouring out next to him. He looked around in the mass of people in the hallway, searching for Sara. He did not see her anywhere and he figured that she had already left, as soon as somebody had told her that she would not be heard today.

Greg gave up on looking around. Now the tiredness was dropping down on him. It was way past his usual bed-time and the exhausting court session had not been helping either.

Greg did not know that Sara actually had not left yet. She had seen him coming out of the courtroom. She had watched him looking around for a few moments, but he had not seen her. And she had not drawn his attention to herself.

She intended to make a step towards him again. She did. Or maybe she did not. They were over it now; there was no point in starting all that trouble again. And certainly not before this trial was over.

She had not liked wasting the day, doing basically nothing. Of course, it had not been expected that Greg's testimony would take that long, but still she wished she could have been at work and been called as soon as it was her turn. Now she would be at court again tomorrow, hopefully not wasting another day sitting around.

* * *

_I__t had been a nice last night that they had spent together._

Well, they had not known back then that it would be their last.

Greg had been working the next night, so Sara had been at home, getting some sleep, only to go in early the next morning, hoping to see Greg before he left.

As it had turned out, he had been busy anyway, so Sara was happy to join him, while she was doing some paperwork that had been leftover.

They were working silently, only Greg's music playing rather quietly in the background. Sara stood up.

"I'll just get another file," she said, walking to the door. She did not come far, for suddenly Conrad Ecklie was blocking her way out. Sara backed away a step. Ecklie glanced at Greg.

"So we're reunited, aren't we?" he stated. Sara chose to ignore this.

"Do you have anything for me?" she wanted to know.

"You know why you're at days, don't you?" Ecklie ignored her question.

Sara frowned at his comment. She could vividly imagine Greg's face even though she could not see it right now.

So far she had been able to endure working for Ecklie surprisingly well. As long as he did not interfere in her work, she was fine. She did not need a lot of advice from her supervisor, even though some appreciation would have been nice, but she would never expect that from Ecklie.

Nevertheless it had been going well so far and she did not really know why he was implying now that she was at days because of Greg. She did not like that; it reminded her only of what Nick had said.

He had held the opinion that she had taken the fall for Greg. Considering Ecklie's implication, he was right, but Sara still did not want to think of it this way.

Greg had wondered why she had taken the transfer so calmly, apparently not realizing what was behind it. It was not really surprising. Greg had thought that if somebody was transferred because of their relationship, it would be him. Sara had avoided telling him otherwise, unwilling to make him worry about it. She had not really protested against Ecklie's move, knowing they were treading thin ice anyway. She might not like it, but she was not inclined to lose her job either. And working at days was not that bad after all. Working at days minus Ecklie would be even better though.

Since he was only met with silence, Ecklie turned away, giving them some redundant work order, and left. Sara exchanged a look with Greg.

She rolled her eyes, showing him what she thought of her boss' words.

"Is it true?" Greg asked nevertheless and Sara cringed. She did not need this discussion. She did not want this discussion.

"Don't listen to his rubbish," she replied shortly, taking her eyes off Greg then and turning back to her work.

"It's not just rubbish. He's actually transferred you and-"

"Greg, I don't want to discuss this, okay?" she interrupted him rather sharply. If she had not been as annoyed about the situation as she was, she might have laughed about the similarity of Greg and Nick in this discussion.

"Why not?" Greg wanted to know.

Sara looked at him again, soothing herself. "I don't want you to worry about it."

She just hoped Nick would not confront Greg again, when she would not even be there to interfere. Nick might be able to cause Greg's conscience to get even worse. Greg had felt bad enough after the whole thing with Charlie had happened and it had taken Sara long enough to make him feel better; she did not want to talk herself blue in the face again.

"Worry about what?" Greg insisted, although Sara guessed that he knew it very well. Why did he want her to say it out loud? Did he want her to add what Nick had said? That their relationship made everything only more complicated? That Greg should let her go? That he wondered how Sara could trust Greg enough, considering what had happened.

"Nothing," she said, once again facing away from him. She did not hear him picking up his work again, so she guessed that he was still watching her. "Nick says you should let me go," she gave in quietly. Greg did not answer for a few moments and his voice was tense when he finally did.

"Do you want that?"

He was not questioning if Nick was right at all. He was asking directly after the consequences she was drawing from it. She had not thought of that. She had wanted him to protest Nick's, in her eyes stupid, suggestion.

"Of course not," she replied firmly. "Look, Greg, it may be that I've taken the fall for you…" Why were Nick's words resounding in her mind so much? "But it doesn't matter. I don't want you to worry about it."

"How could I not?"

Sara stared at him only.

"And Nick's-"

"Nick's stupid," Sara said firmly.

"And protective," Greg added.

"Yeah." Sara grew rather interested in the file she had been working on before, remembering only now that she had been about to get another file, when Ecklie had turned up.

"Would…?" Greg started again. Sara remained silent. Sometimes she really did not want to worry about this. For a moment she agreed with Nick that their relationship made things even more complicated.

And when she stood up to get her file finally, she did not want to worry about what Greg thought of her brooding silence.

* * *

Sara was just leaving the courthouse, working her way through the crowd of people when a voice called her from behind. She had not even known that he was here although she could have guessed it. 

She turned around, while somebody was almost colliding with her. Grissom waved slightly to draw her attention to himself.

"Have you been here the whole day?" he asked, when she had finally reached him.

"Yeah," she nodded, "I haven't been at the lab at all."

"It took longer than expected," Grissom stated and Sara nodded. She was certainly annoyed by that.

"They'd told me it would be my turn today, right after Greg's testimony," she said, frowning at Grissom.

"Yeah, that took them longer…"

"Why's that?" Sara questioned, folding her arms in front of her chest.

"Brody's lawyer took his time on a few unexpected questions," her former boss told her seriously.

"Wh-?" Sara wanted to ask, her look questioning, but Grissom already continued.

"I'm telling you this so you're not surprised if you hear it from somebody else," he preluded and Sara listened intently, ignoring the people that were still streaming past them.

"He drew into doubt that Greg was actually knocked out and brought back home, while Brody dropped you off in that forest."

"What?" Sara exclaimed and Grissom was happy that the noise of the people around them somewhat drowned her shout. "But that's -," she wanted to continue, but Grissom gestured her to get out of the building first; it had been a mistake to tell her right here and now anyway.

"We'll talk somewhere else," he said loudly. Sara did not look happy but turned to leave before him. They made their way out of the building, Grissom a few steps behind Sara. Some distance away from it, Sara stopped and turned around, looking furious.

Before she had the chance to start again, Grissom held up his hands. "I just told you so you know what's coming tomorrow. You need to stay calm in the stand, you know that."

"Yeah," Sara nodded.

"Tell them what happened just as calm and precise as you do it every time you testify for the lab, and it will be okay," he added.

"Yeah," she said again, but Grissom could see that her eyes were searching for something she could kick, but there was nothing far and wide on the dusty parking lot.

**TBC**


	6. Sidle

_**A/N: A thanks to that handful of people who always read and review lol. Once again lots of Something Happens recollection to come, but both Sara and Greg will have finished their tale soon…**_

* * *

**Chapter 6: Sidle**

This time Sara did not even have to wait. She was the first to be heard today. The morning had not progressed very far, when she seated herself, smoothing down the trouser of her grey suit. She tried to remind herself of what Grissom had said. If she told calmly and precisely what had happened, things would be okay.

She heard the prosecutor talking, while she let her eyes wander over the people in the courtroom. She met Charlie's gaze calmly. She was not afraid of him, certainly not. She wanted him to get locked up, before he could hurt anybody else, but that was all she cared about.

"Ms. Sidle, on the day of your abduction… can you tell me what happened?"

Sara nodded. "I finished my work at the lab at about 9 AM and drove then directly to Greg's."

"Had you agreed with Mr. Sanders to meet at that time?" the man asked, clearly wanting to know if Greg had known she was coming.

"No," Sara shook her head. "I went there as a surprise as it was Greg's birthday." She had never come so far as to wish him a happy birthday.

"You didn't make it to his apartment though?"

Sara glanced briefly at Charlie without moving her head. "I parked my car just a street away and was walking over to Greg when something hit me from behind."

"Did you see the attacker?"

Sara shook her head. She had been knocked out directly; she had not had the slightest chance of getting away.

"No, I didn't. I blacked out immediately." She did not know how long she had been unconscious, and neither did she know what had happened until she had woken up. According to Greg, Charlie had turned up at about 10 AM at his place and they had directly driven out to the cabin then.

"When did you regain consciousness?" the man in front of her asked next.

"I don't know how much time passed," Sara replied. "I remember lying on the ground. It was cold. My head was hurting and it took me some effort to open my eyes. Then there was suddenly this disgusting stuff in my mouth and when I finally opened my eyes, I realized that they were gagging me."

"Who did you see?"

Sara's eyes wandered over the head of the prosecutor. In the very last row she saw somebody sitting down who had not been there before. She closed her eyes for a second, breathing out slowly. She did not think his presence was going to help.

"Greg Sanders was leaning over me."

She had thought that she was having a nightmare. The reality had appeared to be too absurd to be true.

"What happened then?"

"I tried to move, but couldn't. I tried to yell at Greg, but couldn't either because of the gag. Then I heard another man speaking." Sara remembered that this had been the moment when she had started to be scared. She had only seen Greg before and since she would have never imagined that Greg could do something like that, to her even more so, she had not thought it real, and had not really been afraid of him until then, shocked maybe, but not scared.

"What did the other man say?"

"They were discussing what they were going to do. I could not really follow. I was dizzy and my head was hurting badly."

"What did they do next?" the prosecutor asked, nodding briefly.

"Greg helped me stand up." He had been careful, had kept her from falling, but it had not made it any easier for her to understand what he was doing. Back then she had not known that Greg was only trying to help her, to save her. "They brought me into the cabin. On the way I could see the other man's face for the first time. He was pointing a gun at me."

"Can you identify the man?"

Sara nodded. "It was Mr. Brody."

"It was him who was pointing the gun at you?"

"Yes."

"Was Mr. Sanders armed as well?"

Sara shook her head. "No, he wasn't."

"What happened inside the cabin?"

"Greg made me sit on a couch. Mr. Brody bound my legs again. Greg had removed the tape earlier, so I could walk. Then both of them went outside." She had been afraid. Her mind had been racing, trying to come up with an explanation to Greg's behavior and had come back empty. She had not been able to understand why Greg was hurting her.

* * *

It was no wonder that Nick thought there could be no trust between them, although he knew as well as she did that Greg had saved her. 

_Greg had not stayed very much longe__r, after Ecklie had bothered them during their work, and his and Sara's subsequent discussion had ended._

Greg's shift was over and while he usually would have stayed a bit longer when Sara was working at the lab as well, he had been rather quick to leave today. It was not like there had been a fight, but there was certainly tension between them that Sara was not able shove aside.

Greg wished her a good day, but did not say much more when he left.

Sara nodded only. "Bye."

Greg walked out of the door and Sara slammed the folder in front of her shut frustrated. She looked at her pager. What she needed, was a call out. Working a scene for nice long hours would at least get her mind of brooding over the issue between her and Greg.

Her wish was fulfilled half an hour later when one of her co-workers from days walked in and told her that the two of them had a 419. Sara jumped up eagerly and the two women made their way to the place some miles outside of Vegas.

Sara arrived home way after her shift had actually ended, tired and muddy, but satisfied. She took a nice long shower and even found something eatable in her fridge.

Then she crashed onto her couch and remembered only then that Greg had not said anything about coming over tonight before going in to work. She doubted he would come anyway, and did not even consider calling him. Maybe it was a good idea if they had a short break to figure out what they actually wanted. Not that Sara really doubted what she wanted.

* * *

"What did you do, once Mr. Brody and Mr. Sanders had left the cabin?" the prosecutor wanted to know.

"I tried to free myself, but it wasn't working," Sara stated. At this time she could only assume that Greg was indeed in the whole thing, and had to fear the worst after all. Even though she still had not wanted to believe it. She had known that if Greg was actually responsible for her abduction, they would have to get rid of her, since she knew him and there was no way he would get away with it otherwise.

"Were you alone for long?"

Sara shook her head. "Greg came back after a few minutes." She glanced at him, who was sitting in the back row, but looked back at the man in front of her quickly. "He came up to me and crouched down next to the couch." She remembered that she had been more angry than afraid then, seeing him there next to her.

"What did he do?"

"He asked me to stay quiet and not to tell that we know each other. He made me promise that and removed the gag then. I asked him what on earth he was doing and he told me that it had been Charlie's doing."

"What did you do?"

"I didn't really believe him. I mean, for me it looked very much like it was Greg's doing just as much. I told him to get me out of there." She had hoped Greg would free her; she had not been as afraid of him as she had been of his friend, still hoping deep inside that Greg was not going to hurt her, at least not more than he already had. "Greg told me he'd be right back and walked out again. I had really thought he'd help me, but he didn't come back."

"What happened then?"

"I wasn't gagged anymore so I figured yelling for help was my best alternative. But somebody knocked me out again."

"Did you see who?"

"No, I didn't. I had seen neither Greg nor Charlie coming back inside."

* * *

_When Sara had gone in to work the next morning, she had not seen Greg anywhere. _

Maybe he had already gone home, maybe he was still out on a scene, but Sara did not find him anywhere in the lab. She had not been looking for him actively, but she figured she would have caught sight of him, if he was still around, since she had stepped around almost all labs this morning, asking for results from her work of the previous day.

Her shift passed rather uneventful, her only call-out being a simple breaking-and-entering case. Sara left the lab on time, making a few errands on her way home, only to wonder afterwards what to do with the rest of the day. Balancing her bag of groceries, she walked up to her mailbox, opened it and took out the few letters in there.

One of them caught her attention for she recognized the format and address, only that she got this kind of letters usually at work, not to her home address. She waited to open it until she had placed her bag on her kitchen counter, then she ripped it open. It was what she had suspected. She was asked to testify in court in the trial against Charlie Brody. It was scheduled in two months time.

If anything made Sara wanting to call Greg even more urgently and was at the same time telling her that this was a very bad time for it, it was this letter.

**TBC**


	7. Situations

_**A/N: Well, **__**I obviously caught up on myself with writing ahead, and actually I should not even be here writing, as I am currently swaying between excitement and nausea when I think of all the school work and my upcoming plans, but as you can see, I am here, writing this, because I am nice and don't want to leave you waiting for too **__**long… anyway, here we go.**_

* * *

**  
Chapter 7****: Situations**

Greg had slipped out of the lab in time, hurrying over to court, although he was not even sure that it was a good idea for him to be there. Sara had never invited him to come. Of course, they had never actually talked since the trial had been scheduled, safe for their three-words exchange on the previous day. It was of course understandable that he was interested to watch her testimony, but it was not like he did not already know everything she was going to tell. They had been together for several months. Sara had certainly told him everything, hadn't she?

If Greg was honest to himself, he admitted that she had probably not told him everything. In an outburst she had shouted at him how scared she had been about what he and Charlie were going to do, how she had always kept pondering about the reason for his doing, and that it was not his fault what had happened.

But naturally they had never really brought up those topics again. Sara had certainly not been inclined to talk about the fear of him she had suffered from during the abduction. She had probably not even wanted to think about it, even though both of them knew now that Greg had done everything in order to save her.

And now Sara would be retelling the story at court. She would definitely not describe much of her feelings. Greg was sure that she would try to keep her statement as factual as possible, probably trying to pretend it was just another testimony on the job. So he would not learn anything new about her feelings, if he went to watch her testimony. It would have been wrong anyway, if he found out anything new.

Sara was already talking when he entered the court room as quietly as possible.

"Who did you see?" he heard the prosecutor asking. Greg was not sure at what point of the story they where, but when Sara answered, it was quite obvious.

"Greg Sanders was leaning over me."

When he had leaned over her and gagged her, in order to keep her from yelling out.

Sara appeared very calm and collected when she was telling this, but Greg could only imagine that it looked differently inside of her. She continued telling what had happened, and Greg realized now why he had felt it a bad idea to come. It was not only because it might be uncomfortable for her, but also because her testimony made his insides squirm. He knew all of what she was telling, but listening to her recounting it made him feel sick, also sick with himself, even though Sara had told him again and again that it was not his fault.

Sara continued talking and Greg listened in agony. He had been there when all of that had happened.

But then came the part that he had not witnessed. Neither he nor Sara did actually know what exactly had happened. Greg had woken up in his apartment, and Sara had found herself being thrown out of Charlie's car in the woods.

"Ms. Sidle, you told us that you were knocked out again. Can you tell us when you regained consciousness?"

Sara nodded. "It was like I was falling from somewhere and landed hard. The ground was cold. It was at night and there was only little light from the backlights of a car. I couldn't really see a lot and my hands were bound behind my back."

"You said you did not see a lot. But were you able to see who was there besides you?"

"No, I didn't see anybody. I could hear somebody though."

"What did they do? What could you hear?"

"The lid of the trunk of the car was slammed shut, so I figured they had just thrown me out of it. I heard steps coming towards me."

Greg could only imagine Sara's fear. After all, she had found herself being throw out somewhere in a wood, after being threatened to be killed earlier. She could only have feared that they – and Greg had to include himself there, from Sara's point of view – were going to finish her off. And then Charlie had left her alone out there.

"I didn't know what he was going to do. I thought he'd kill me," Sara confirmed Greg's suspicion.

The prosecutor nodded. "Did you have any chance to do something?"

Greg rolled his eyes. He knew it was only an incitation to tell more, but he wished Sara would not have to keep talking too long. She was probably holding up better than he would, but he did neither want her to have to recall more details, nor did he want to hear them, or anybody else in this courtroom to do so.

Apart from the fact that it would help to keep Charlie locked up. Greg's glance went briefly to his former friend. Charlie was looking nowhere special and had probably not even noticed that Greg was there. And the young CSI did not care. He did not want to have anything to do with the other man anymore.

Sara shook her head. "Not really. I was begging Greg to help me. I thought he was there, too, but he wasn't."

"You are sure of that?" the prosecutor wanted to have that reaffirmed.

"Yeah, Charlie said that Greg was not there, and I didn't see him either."

Greg wondered where he had actually been at that time. Had Charlie left him lying at the cabin? Had he already brought him home by then? Or had he actually been in the car at that time and Charlie had just stopped in the woods to throw Sara out? Greg swallowed at that thought.

"What happened then?"

"I heard the slamming of a door of the car and then the engine starting. I turned on my back, so I could see what was going on. I thought he wanted to run me over."

Greg thought he heard a slight trembling in Sara's voice there, indication of the fear she must have felt. Greg had the impression that everybody's attention in the room must be on him, so bad was he feeling. He even thought that Sara's gaze was on him for a moment. Greg was feeling hot and uncomfortable, but was trying to shake off the sensation of being watched. It was irrational. He was sitting in the back row. Nobody was paying attention to him, no matter how guilty he felt. And Sara was certainly not looking at him.

"But then he drove away and left me alone," Sara continued.

"Can you describe the situation?"

"I was alone. I wasn't able to free myself and was afraid of what would happen if nobody found me soon. It was dark, so I wasn't able to see anything around me."

Sara had told Greg that this had also been the time when she had realized that he was not behind the crime. Greg wondered how she could actually have had any thought for him back then, considering the situation she had been in.

* * *

Greg had received his letter to testify at court the same day as Sara had. In a way he had still been somewhat surprised that he was actually asked to testify as a witness, and not as a defendant. Of course, the lab had practically cleared him, but he still considered his involvement in the kidnapping fishy from an outside view.

It was not even what he cared about so much right now. He had not seen Sara in two days and he was not even sure if it was her avoiding him, or him avoiding her. She might as well have decided that they could not go on like that, that the trial and everything connected to it only aggravated their situation, but Greg felt also that she would be quite right with the estimation. He did not want to cause her any more problems than he already had.

Sara did not know that several people in the lab had – intentionally or not - made remarks that confirmed Greg in this opinion.

All in all, he decided to give her time. He had never wanted to push her to anything, and he would not do so now.

Even though he did not like the idea that he was causing only more problems for her, he was rather optimistic that Sara would stick with him. It made him feel a little guilty. It was just yet another reason why he would not push her. If she came, then she would do so because she wanted it and because she did not think their relationship caused too many problems. Sara was rational like that; Greg knew that. If she did not come, she had decided differently.

* * *

Sara was still recalling the time she had been alone in the wood, and Greg was still listening unhappily. His gaze was fixed on her now, and he thought she was looking at him, too, for some moments.

"I waited and I think at some point I just feel asleep because I was so exhausted. I woke up when a dog was climbing over me."

"And his owner brought you to the hospital?" the man in front of her asked what he already knew.

Sara nodded. "Yes, he did. They checked me out and then I went to the lab and called Greg. I wanted him to know that I'm alright."

And again, she had thought of him, something Greg could not quite understand.

**TBC**


	8. Stages

**Chapter 8****: Stages**

It was certainly an interesting case.

His client had already confessed so there was not much to do there, since he was also convinced that the confession was true. But one thing he could still do was drawing into doubt that solely his client was responsible for what had happened. And there he was definitely not sure if Charlie Brody had really acted only on his own. He did not seem to be stupid, but he also appeared to lose his nerves quickly.

So his lawyer was not quite certain that it had really been Charlie's idea to abduct Sara Sidle. When he thought back of the man who had testified as a witness, although he had admitted of being involved heavily into the affair, the lawyer could imagine very well that Greg Sanders was the head of it. Of course, Sanders had known that Sara would recognize him. So he must have planned from the very beginning to get rid of her.

Well, he could not prove that, the lawyer thought, leaning back and listening to the last part of Sara's narration. But he could try to make the jury doubt that Charlie was the only one who was responsible.

He wondered what was up with Sara. Why was she protecting Greg Sanders? As far as he could see, she had no clear evidence to be convinced that it had not been his idea. Besides simply believing him. Maybe she was failing to see that he was actually the man behind it. Another possibility was that Sara knew very well that Greg was responsible but had decided to protect him for whatever reason.

He did not really know what the reason was, so he would have to poke around. Maybe he would hit the right spot and she would break and tell the truth. If she was not already telling it that was.

The prosecutor had finished his questions, so the lawyer stood up, walking towards Sara.

"I've been wondering about a few things, Ms. Sidle," he started.

Sara remained unmoved.

"You don't know who knocked you out… twice. You don't know for sure who was in that wood with you." He paused. "But what you know and saw was that Greg Sanders was there, holding you captive." Sara had opened her mouth slightly, as if to answer, but the lawyer continued. "So I wonder how your insistency that Mr. Sanders was not responsible for your abduction fits together with this."

Sara looked at him sternly. "There's evidence for that, and I know Greg as a co-worker and friend and know that he would never be able to commit such an act."

"Can you exclude that Greg Sanders was responsible?" the lawyer asked sharply.

"Yes, I can," Sara's response came in the same tone.

"Can you exclude that he was with Mr. Brody out in that wood?" the man specified.

"Yes, Charlie had knocked him out just like me." Sara tilted her head only so slightly, narrowing her eyes.

He knew he was on the right track. "Did you witness that?"

Sara hesitated only for a second. "No, I didn't."

It was certainly not his intention to give her a hard time just for the spite of it, but either did she have way too much trust in a person who had apparently been involved in the crime, or she was protecting Greg Sanders against better knowledge. In the first case, he had to show her the error in it. In the second case he had to make her give up this protection.

He saw her glancing past him, and when he turned around to walk back to his seat, he followed the direction of her look and found Greg Sanders sitting in the back row. Interpreting both Sara's and Sanders' expression, he could see that the two were apparently close, which disproved neither of his two alternate theories.

He was finished for now, but they would hear Sara a second time, later in this trial when another incident that had happened months later in Greg's apartment would be investigated. He was sure this would only push up his case.

* * *

_She had not come. _

If she had come, it would have been because she wanted it and because she did not think their relationship caused too many problems.

Apparently she felt differently.

At the end of the day Greg had been lucky that she had tried it at all. She had tried to make it work. He could not expect more from her.

It was certainly a low. They had had a few happy months, but Greg thought of what all had been destroyed because of the actions of his so-called friend Charlie. He and Sara were not working together anymore. They were hardly even seeing each other at all. Greg sometimes caught a glimpse of her when he left work, but more than often he did not get to see her at all. Either she came later than he left, or she came so early that she was already knee-deep in work when he was done with his shift. Greg guessed the latter.

And when he saw her, she seemed always in a great hurry. Greg could understand that she felt uncomfortable.

The good side, if you could call it like that, was that they had time to work out how they would deal with the trial and with the situation in general in the future.

The situation in general, that one had certainly improved for Greg. Ambiguous remarks at the lab had stopped. The tension between him and Nick had decreased and they had become closer again. Greg was happy about that. It gave him somewhat a feeling of old times, when things had still been alright. He had to smirk about that thought. It was funny that he felt those times to be so long ago, and it was certainly even more so that he felt as if everything had been alright back then.

He was still missing Sara in the team though, and he knew he was not the only one who felt that way. And still, things had improved.

The second issue, the upcoming trial, was easier, or more complicated, however you saw it. Greg had talked about it with Nick who had actually initiated the conversation. The talk had then come to Charlie. Nick had more or less carefully asked how much Greg knew.

"Didn't he hint at all what he was going to do?" he wanted to know.

Greg shook his head, still surprised. Some weeks ago a conversation like that would have been impossible between the two men.

"He didn't," he replied. "He considered it a surprise…" The abhorrence was audible in his voice.

Nick nodded. "It must have been a real shock."

"Yeah," Greg confirmed. "It was… bad." He rubbed his forehead. "And later, when I woke up at my place… I thought…"

"Yeah," his friend nodded again. "Did you ever get the chance to ask him what he did then?"

"No, I didn't. When he came to my place, I certainly didn't want to raise that matter. And then came Sara… there wasn't an opportunity to ask him. No idea what he would have told me anyway."

Nick was silent for some moments, looking serious. "You know it'd be good, if we knew about that, with the trial coming up and everything…"

Greg raised his eyebrows slightly. "I thought I was cleared…?" he started carefully. Sara had stated clearly that she knew he was not responsible, had confirmed his statement that he had not known about it and had done his best to help her. And as far as Greg knew, there had been evidence that had confirmed Sara's statement.

"Yeah," Nick affirmed. "But it's not like we have a lot of evidence to clear you. I mean, you know that… you brought her into that cabin… your prints were there and you touched her as well. I know what Sara said, but it's not a lot. We didn't get a chance to look into the car before weeks had passed, so… If we knew what happened out there…" Greg looked down worriedly. "But, Greg, it's going to be okay. We're taking care of that," Nick ensured him.

"Thanks, Nick." He could be happy that the Texan was apparently on his side again.

"But somebody should try to talk to Charlie again… not in interrogation though," Nick thought loudly.

"Do you want me to go and talk to him?" Greg questioned, feeling uncomfortable only at the thought of it.

Nick shook his head slowly. "I don't think that's a good idea."

"So somebody else?"

This time his co-worker nodded. Greg thought about it for a moment, before he shook his head.

"We can't ask that from her," he refused Nick's idea. "I'll go."

He did not like it, but the imagination of asking Sara to go and question Charlie was just too much. He was actually certain that she would do it without a second thought. She had done way more, risked way more in her attempt to protect him. But he could not ask that. Besides, they were not even talking. He could not suddenly show up and ask her to go over to jail and arrange a talk with Charlie. It would be insane.

"It will look bad, if you go. It will look as if you're still close…" Nick interjected.

"We were never close," Greg corrected his friend. "And it doesn't matter. I look bad in this whole thing anyway. But if there's a chance to get out of it, if we know a bit more, I'll try to take that."

**TBC**


	9. Smiles

_**A/N: I'm sorry for taking so long with updating. **__**As to the story itself, rejoice, the last bit of pre-trial is coming… if you're as confused as I am by now, I'm sorry. My lousy updating isn't making this easier to understand :S I hope we'll go **__**on a little smoother from here :)**_

* * *

**Chapter 9****: Smiles **

Greg did not really know why he was acting so secretive. It was his right to visit a friend in jail, even though the crime the friend was sitting in for had actually partly been committed against him, and it certainly not the reason was why Greg was here. However, his name would be written down anyway; people would know he had come here; there was simply no point in his secrecy.

He had certainly wondered if his decision was right ever since he had set out on visiting Charlie in jail. But he needed answers, in more than one way. It took some time until he was finally seated opposite of Charlie who looked pleased to see him. Greg did not even have time to say anything before his former friend already opened the conversation.

"I didn't think you'd come to visit me after all," he said, smiling slightly.

Greg wondered how open he should be. Should he tell Charlie why exactly he had come or should he pretend he was here for a friendly chat? Charlie was unpredictable after all which Greg, and Sara, had found out painfully after all.

"I want to talk to you," he stated simply, watching the other man's reaction.

Charlie smiled. "What do you want to talk about?"

"About the day out there at the cabin." This was certainly the gentlest way to formulate it.

The man opposite of him frowned slightly. "Are you still angry about that?"

Greg raised his eyebrows. "You knocked me out there, didn't you?"

Charlie leaned back. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Greg frowned in puzzlement. "But you just said-"

"My lawyer advised me not to say anything." His expression had turned neutral and Greg stared at him taken aback.

"This is no interrogation, Charlie, you don't need your lawyer's advice here," he said. "I'm your friend." He could say the word, but only with a pang.

Charlie did not reply. Instead he suddenly stood up from his chair. Greg rose from his, standing up halfway himself. "Please, I need to know what you did to Sara, please."

"I didn't do anything to her," the other man replied simply, stood up slowly and walked off, a guard taking care of him while Greg watched him leaving helplessly.

_I didn't do anything to her. _Greg hoped that a tiny bit of truth had been in this statement. Charlie had certainly not done nothing to Sara, having left her out there in the wood after everything he had already done earlier, but Sara had never mentioned anything else and Greg hoped that was because there was nothing else. But he was here to learn what had happened exactly, what Charlie had done to get him home, to get Sara out there. He needed to know it, Nick needed to know it. Sara could not tell him. She did not know big parts of it and what she knew… she had never mentioned it.

Greg let out a frustrated growl. He was left with so many questions. They had been moving around in his mind before the visit but then he had been thinking, hoping, that they would be answered soon. And now, not even five minutes into the conversation, Charlie was gone, having left Greg with nothing.

* * *

Sara had no good day either. Running into Nick wouldn't have constituted a bad day per se, but somehow they had managed to make it turn bad.

It had been friendly at first. Then he had mentioned Greg. Sara had not joined the topic enthusiastically (it was great how she was calling Greg a 'topic' now), but Nick had been stubborn.

"Aren't you two going to talk?" he had asked.

"Oh, we're talking," Sara returned, tilting her head slightly, before fixing Nick with a stare.

"When did you talk to Greg the last time?" her friend went on. Sara's look remained fixed, her frown getting ever so deeper.

"I don't know," she said and while it could have been an admission it did not sound like one.

"See…?" Nick started, trailing off.

"I can't remember every conversation I've had with anybody," Sara added.

"Sara…"

She looked at her shoes.

"Since when's Greg 'anybody'?" Nick asked softly and she looked up swiftly.

"Since when do you care so much about Greg's and mine relationship?" she returned sharply.

"I guess that's because Greg's my friend, too," Nick said, a small tone of anger in voice now. "You don't know how much he's beating himself up about what happened-"

"Oh, I think I know _very _well," Sara said icily. "And wasn't it you who blamed him? Or is my memory messed up there?"

Nick recoiled. "I know," he said after a moment. "I… I was thinking about you. I was worried about you." He looked at her earnestly. "But I believe him… and you… I mean, I believe he didn't do… I believe that he saved you."

"And what-?"

"And that's why I don't want him going down with this," Nick added.

"Who's talking about going down?" Sara questioned. "You said it: Greg didn't do anything. I've made my statement. I-"

"If you'd listen to me for a moment-"

"I do listen to you." She stood there firmly, arms crossed in front of her chest, and even though Nick hoped that his look would soften her, he was not quite sure it would work.

"It's not like we have a lot of evidence to clear him," he started slowly. "His prints were everywhere. We didn't get a chance to look into the car before weeks had passed. We don't really know what happened out there."

"I told you what happened," Sara interjected.

"We don't know what happened while you were unconscious," Nick stated softly.

"I told you that Greg didn't do anything. He saved me," Sara was getting louder again.

"I know," Nick said quietly. "But they might think you're just protecting him, or that he's threatening you, or that the whole ordeal messed you up and you-"

"Oh, thanks a lot, Nicky," she said sharply.

"Sara, I-"

"Well, then go and do your job and find the evidence. It will tell you that Greg didn't do anything," Sara finished, dashing off past Nick, who turned around and looked after her helpless wondering if she was that angry because she realized that he had probably told her the truth.

His thoughts wandered to Greg and he wondered if he had succeeded in getting information from Charlie. If his lawyer was any good, Charlie would not say anything. Their only hope was that he would talk to Greg as a friend and that was the only reason why Nick had let Greg go at all. He just hoped he was more successful than Nick had been today.

* * *

_(several weeks later)_

When the suit had been adjourned, Sara had moved out of the stand quickly, trying to get out of the court room hastily and without drawing too much attention to herself.

She wondered in how much trouble she had brought Greg. She remembered what Nick had told her. He had warned her against exactly this. And she had known back then that he would probably be right. And Sara had tried to shoot the messenger.

When she arrived at the exit of the room, near where Greg had been sitting, his seat was empty. Of course. He would not have waited around for her or anybody else for that matter.

She could only hope that Nick and the others knew their job. Of course she had always trusted them, but it had been Days' case after all, even though Nick had assisted on it. Sara shook her head slightly, while she descended the stop at the exit of the courthouse. It did not matter. The evidence would be on their side no matter what. She smiled lightly despite the situation. She and Greg were certainly on the same side, even though she had not shown it to him often enough lately.

Well, actually she had not shown him anything lately. Well, she had made him spill his soda on his suit. Actually, she had been standing in his way which had him made spilling his soda, not really the fact that it had been her.

And she wondered where the headache came from.

"Hey, Sara."

She stopped dead, her gaze fixed a little ahead on the parking lot where her car stood. Taking a moment to put on a smile, she turned around to him. He stood there, hands in his pockets, teetering slightly, and if Sara had not known better she could have thought he had no worry in the world, if it had not been for the tiredness that was clearly visible on second glance.

She could not believe he was smiling. Had she not just managed to get him into such a bad situation? And no matter whether it had been her or somebody else, he had to realize the trouble ahead. And still he was smiling at her, or maybe just because. Or-

Maybe she had to admit for once that she did not know.

**TBC**


	10. Surprises

_**A/N: **__**Ahh, I even managed to upload this before going to uni despite this site being slightly evil. lol  
**_

_**I would **_**really**_** like to know what you think. This is finally a Greg/Sara-heavy chapter :D**_

* * *

**Chapter 10****: Surprises**

Greg stepped towards her, hands still in his pockets. He motioned her to walk along with him and Sara fell into his pace next to him. They were walking towards her car quietly. Sara had figured that they would have to hold a conversation at some point, that they would not be able to get out of their ways forever, and she did not even want that, had never wanted it. She did not even really know how it had come so far. She remembered things Greg had said, Nick had said, people in the lab had said, she herself had said, but now while she was walking along with Greg over the parking lot, it seemed stupid, or maybe not even stupid, but just… pointless.

She would have never thought though that their first conversation would be silence. She glanced over at him and struggled to come up with something she could say. Anything on her mind did not seem to make more sense than the last few weeks, months did.

They had nearly reached her car, when Greg turned fully around to her, stopping in his tracks.

"How are you doing?" he asked.

Sara was a little surprised by this simple question.

"I'm fine," she said finally. She did not think she would have been able to come up with a completely true answer even if she had wanted to.

Greg smiled. "That's good." He looked at the ground sheepishly for a moment before his gaze wandered back at her. "I'm sorry I never called…" He paused. "I could have checked to make sure you're doing alright at least."

"It's okay," she returned. "I…ugh…" she turned away, confused and upset. She made the last few steps towards her car, before she faced him again. "The trial… I…"

"It's not your fault," Greg said clearly. Sara saw more people coming out of the building in the background. Maybe she should rather look at Greg.

"But-" She felt the need to object.

"Do you remember how you told me that nothing what Charlie did was my fault?" Greg questioned calmly.

Sara nodded silently, remembering how Greg had blamed himself and how she had insisted that there was no blame on him.

"Well, it's certainly not your fault either," Greg said. "And anything that happens in there-" he pointed at the court house, "happens because of him, not because of you."

She looked directly at him now. "I'm sorry," she said quietly.

He made the few steps up to her. "Don't be." He kissed her. It was short and sweet and surprising.

Sara blinked. "That was nice." He did it again and she smiled. His kisses felt almost as if it had never been over.

"We never ended it, you know," he said now, which was another surprise, though not as sweet.

"We didn't," she replied between two kisses. Greg stopped, looking at her. He did not seem as calm as before, but was looking rather sad now.

"We didn't even fight," he said and Sara nodded. They had not fought. And technically they had never broken up. Maybe this was good. Maybe they would not have dared to start it again, if they had actually broken up. Maybe they could just go on where they had left off, no bitter feelings about fights and break-ups involved. And considering everything that was going on around them, maybe they needed something to hold onto.

"We didn't," she agreed quietly. "Do you want to fight with me?"

Greg seemed puzzled, trying to gauge in which manner she actually meant this question. He glanced over his back at the courthouse. "We should get out of the parking lot," he said, not answering her question. Sara nodded, turning to open the door of her car.

"Do you… want to go somewhere?" she asked. He nodded, but did not make a suggestion. Sara pondered where they could go. Both of their places seemed oddly awkward. The lab was certainly not the right place to talk, or even to fight. "We could grab something to eat," she proposed. "We could go to my place, or yours, later, if we feel like it…" If they wanted to fight after all. Or maybe sleep together.

"Okay," he nodded.

"Do you want to come with me?" she asked, pointing at her car. It would make more sense of course, if they both went in their own car, but she did not want that their thread of conversation broke off. She wanted to talk now, or fight, but if they now left separately, they might be sitting in awkward silence somewhere later. Maybe this would happen anyway.

"I can leave my car," Greg returned slowly, implying the question if he could come along with her.

Sara nodded. "Get in here," she ordered with a smile. Greg walked around the car and got in on the passenger's side.

Sara drove off the parking lot in silence but once they were in traffic, Greg started talking much to her relief.

"I would be okay fighting with you," he said. "But I prefer a yelling Sara over a brooding one." He looked at her from the side carefully.

She smiled. "Why?"

"If you're yelling, I can at least answer back." He looked at her again, less careful and more sheepishly now. Sara wondered where to they were actually driving. There was still time to decide. She could just drive to a small restaurant near Greg's place. Somehow she felt like they could actually end up there after all.

"You're right," she replied to Greg's explanation. "So if you want to fight later, we can do that. I'm open for other things as well though."

Greg grinned. "I didn't think I'd get to hear that today." Sara smiled. "Makes my day so much better," Greg added.

Sara's smile grew somewhat sad now. They could not forget what else was going on. She seriously did not know what she could do, how she could help Greg. It gave her a sting that she felt so helpless in this matter.

She should have answered something, for now they were sitting in silence again. It felt strange having Greg sitting next to her so quiet. It was a relief that they arrived at the place she had decided on and could get out of the car.

"We've been here before," Greg said, when they were walking inside. "Once I think."

Sara nodded, remembering the night when Greg had taken her out here and they had ended up at his place. She had teased him about how convenient it had been and smiled now at the memory.

"Yeah, we were. Your place isn't far," she said, wondering if he had the same memories she had. Greg smiled and Sara felt sure that he was really thinking of the same thing she was.

Once they were seated she saw that he was watching her closely and Sara felt awkward and happy at the same time, sitting there together with him. She reminded herself that a lot of kissing had already been going on earlier. They would be fine, even if they would fight later. Right now she did not think they would. Of course there were several possibly issues.

"How are you really doing?" Greg asked suddenly.

"I'm fine," Sara replied, grimacing slightly in confusion. "As you can see and I've told you earlier."

"I've seen you very stressed the last few days," Greg contradicted.

"Understandably." Her expression was earnest. "Really, Greg. I'm doing fine. And now I'm doing even better." She leaned over the table, pressing her lips against his.

"If we go on like this, we'll really end up at my place," Greg laughed happily. Sara blushed lightly, glancing around in the restaurant, hoping that nobody was watching them. They were sitting in a fairly closed off place though, so she did not think this was the case.

"We can eat and then go to your place," she nodded.

She was not quite sure how Greg would react to the change of topic, but she felt like she needed to bring it up before they would go over to more enjoyable things. She did not want to ruin the mood later on and hoped she was not doing it now. She did not really want to fight, even though she preferred it over the unbearable silence of the last few weeks, a silence that had not even resulted from any fighting.

"Are you scheduled to testify again?" she asked quietly, avoiding looking into his eyes again. She could see though that he was nodding seriously.

"Yeah. I still have to testify about the day when Charlie came to my place." That were completely different memories connected with Greg's apartment, unpleasant ones that they both had tried hard to forget.

"Me too," she said. She would have to talk about that day as well. As if she had not done enough damage so far. How would it be conceived that she had been threatened again, this time at Greg's place? Of course, there was still Brass who would testify as well. He had heard what had been going on, even though this had been rather ambiguous.

"Hey, I told you not the worry about it," Greg said, taking her hand. It was much warmer than hers. "And no matter what that lawyer says, they're not treating me as a suspect. They know it was Charlie's doing."

He squeezed her hand and Sara was looking at it and no matter what she had felt before, she felt gloomy now, and although she tried to stop it, she felt the tears coming up into her eyes and rolling down her cheeks. It was the way Greg was saying it. That he was not treated as a suspect. Why would he? He had not done anything bad. The thought that he considered it positive that he was not yet treated in a way that would be wrong, just made her cry, wondering what she would do, if it happened after all, after everything Charlie's lawyer had said, after everything she had said.

"Hey, Sara…" Greg started softly, but Sara jumped up, muttering, "Restroom." and dashed off. She hurried into the restroom, and was relieved that nobody else was in there who would see her tearstained face.

Talk about ruining the mood. Why had she brought up the topic? She had thought that they would maybe fight, she just had not thought that she would fall apart in this way. What would Greg be thinking? That she was unhappy in his company? That she was unhappy that they were not treating him as a suspect? Sara chuckled sadly. No, Greg would not come up with ridiculous thoughts like the latter. The former was very probable though.

She rubbed her face with her handkerchief. Maybe she was also crying because she was happy. Happy that she and Greg seemed to be fine. Happy and afraid that everything good might end too soon again.

**TBC**


	11. Sleep

**Chapter 11: Sleep**

Sara emerged out of the restroom few minutes later. She really did not want to leave Greg waiting and wondering for long. And indeed he looked at her with a worried expression when she approached their table and Sara tried to smile to ease his mind.

She sat down and looked at the table instead of at him. "Can we just pick up where we left off?" she asked. It was kind of the second time today that they would try that.

"Sure," Greg nodded. He looked at her seriously.

"I'm not unhappy in your company," Sara blurted suddenly. Greg looked at her, still earnestly, then he blinked and chuckled.

"I didn't think you were. Or at least I hope I didn't think that," he laughed, rubbing his forehead.

"I'm not sure this made sense," Sara stated, feeling the tension in her reducing.

"It doesn't matter," Greg returned, leaning over and kissing her again. Sara was surprised and had her eyes wide open. Greg opened his, when he drew back from the kiss and looked into her still puffy ones.

"No more crying," he said.

Sara smiled, before she looked away a bit embarrassed. She could not really believe herself that she was so emotional in a situation like this that demanded levelheadedness in her opinion. She did not even mind that Greg had seen it. She was never worried about letting him see her feelings. It was more her concern that he might interpret it wrongly when she suddenly started weeping when he was all nice to her. Sara felt stupid.

She looked back at Greg who had busied himself with his almost empty plate while Sara had been lost in her thoughts for a few moments. He pretended she had not broken off the conversation for the second time today. Sara was thankful for his patience.

"So you're okay with me staying at yours today?" she asked. It wasn't like there was a specific reason that kept her from staying at her own place, besides that she wanted to be at Greg's.

"Of course," Greg smiled.

"Eh, let's go then," Sara suggested. Hopefully being at Greg's would get her mind off gloomy thoughts. She should be happy now, not in that worried state she had fallen into. She wondered how Greg was actually feeling. Wasn't he worried?

When she and Greg were walking up the stairs to his apartment, Sara realized that it was not so easy with banning her dark thoughts. The moment they had entered the apartment building, her mind had returned to the day when Charlie had been at Greg's place. Sara couldn't help thinking of that, but wanted to kick herself for reliving that grim situation. Why couldn't she think of the happy times? She had come up here so many times on good occasions.

Greg opened the door in front of her and let her in first, before he walked in as well and closed the door. Sara noticed that Greg's apartment was much in the same state as it had been when she came here for the first time, and she smiled slightly.

"Sorry about the chaos," he said now. "My mind wasn't quite on tidying up lately. And I didn't think you'd come over." He looked at her way too serious in her opinion. Sara pulled him towards her, and kissed him, banning the thoughts of Charlie to the back of her mind.

"It's alright," she said smiling. "It looks like your place this way."

"We kinda skipped the fighting part," Greg said between two kisses, while Sara was already pulling him the way down to his bedroom that she knew all too well.

"We can do that later," Sara chuckled, and Greg reached out behind her back to open the door to the bedroom. She closed her eyes, when he started to undress her and finally her thoughts were only on them.

* * *

"Are you staying here today?" Greg asked, slowly caressing her back.

"I already said I would," Sara replied smiling, and yawned. "I'm tired."

"I leave you alone for a short time and you fall back into old habits and don't sleep anymore, huh?" he asked jokingly.

"It wasn't a short time," she returned, more seriously. "And working at Days…" she paused. "I can't sleep at night." She rolled on her back. "I'm just thinking and thinking, wide awake… ready to jump out of bed…"

Greg leaned over her. "It's day now, and you don't need to be worrying, you know." He smiled down at her. She was frowning slightly. He kissed her again and she responded at first, before she pushed him softly away from her.

"Then let me sleep," she said. Greg moved a little away from her, lying down and closing his eyes.

"Sure," he replied, feeling her turning to him. He opened his eyes for a moment, curious to see if she was watching him, but she had her eyes closed. Instead of doing the same, he looked at her for a few moments, reaching out to stroke her hair again, smiling to himself.

"Sleep, Greg," she reprimanded him lightly on his touch, not opening her eyes again. Greg stopped his movements and closed his eyes, trying to find the sleep they had been talking about.

It did not come though, for now that Sara was slumbering, as he noticed on her regular, calm breathing, the worries that had been following her through the day came more and more into his mind. He could not quite help giving her right regarding her fears. He was trying to stay optimistic, and his constant, half-serious coming back to their non-fighting was maybe a way to keep his thoughts on other things, things that were naturally nearer to his heart. Sara that was.

He lay awake for a long time, unable to peace his mind, despite the added comfort of Sara being there today, and it felt as if he had just fallen asleep, finally, when somewhere a cell phone went off. It took Greg several seconds until his clouded mind realized that it was his phone and that he would have to shut it off, anything besides shutting it off being no alternative he took into account anyway. But before he even decided to move, something was leaning on him heavily, finally lifting somewhat, and suddenly the ringing of the phone stopped.

Greg finally opened his eyes, and saw that Sara was lying over him in her successful attempt to reach the phone that was lying on the floor on his side of the bed. She was climbing back fully into the bed now, a sleepy look on her face. She was about to move away from him, when he stopped her by lying his arms around her waist.

"You can stay here," he said hoarsely, his voice not any fitter than the rest of his body felt.

Sara smiled instead of an answer.

"Did you see who it was?" Greg asked.

"No," she said, to Greg's disappointment rolling back to where she had been sleeping before. "I just shut it off."

"Well done." He laughed. After a few seconds of silence he added, "You wouldn't just shut off your phone like that."

"No," she agreed, "but yours anytime."

Greg could see her smile. The sleep she had gotten had apparently helped her mood up.

"Or did you want me to answer it?" she continued.

"I don't care," he replied, and he meant it. He did not care if any of his co-workers would notice that he and Sara were back together. Were they actually? Well, they had not really talked about it, but he had mentioned that they had never really ended it, and Sara had agreed. So that was where they were. They had not fought, and they had not ended it, and he did not care if anybody knew.

"I have an idea you wouldn't like," he said suddenly, and Sara's expression turned back to the earlier frown.

"And that is?" she wanted to know.

"A pillow fight," he returned in a completely serious voice. When she did not reply, he continued, "I guess this isn't the right time, or the best idea anyway, we should rather get some more sleep, or rather I should get some sleep in the first place, as I don't really know about you, but-"

He could not react fast enough, when Sara suddenly drew out the pillow that he been half lying on. She jumped out of bed, running away with it. Greg realized that he was severely in the disadvantage. While he climbed out of bed as well, considerably slower than Sara, he wondered what had caused Sara's sudden outbreak of lightheartedness. In any way he would make sure it stayed as long as possible. Maybe it was really his turn to worry now.

Sara stopped not far away from the bedroom door, turning to see where Greg was staying. He caught up with her, forgetting about his tiredness now. Sara held the pillow stretched out in front of her, offering it. Greg smirked. Ignoring the pillow, he focused on Sara and started to tickle her belly while she tried to throw the cushion on his head. Laughing unwillingly, she dropped it.

"That's unfair," she complained, once she had steaded her voice after Greg had stopped tickling her. "It's pillow fight, not tickling-" She was interrupted when Greg used more unfair tactics. "And it's not kissing either," she added.

Greg let go of her, smirking. "Can I make it up with some food?"

"What's that food you're talking about?" Sara returned his smirk.

"It can be found in my fridge," Greg said, finally giving up the pillow. Sara picked it up and Greg was almost ready to jump out of the way, but Sara only threw it onto the bed.

"I'm hungry," she admitted.

Greg remembered that she had not eaten a lot for lunch earlier, but chose not to mention it, as he did not want to return to the gloomy state she had been in then.

So he nodded only, and followed her out of the room.

**TBC**


	12. Support

**A/N: Other people's updates may even motivate me...**

* * *

**Chapter 12: Support**

Sara felt unusually optimistic today. Maybe she conceived this only so strongly because it was such a contrast to the way she had felt during the last few weeks, months, certainly days. And what were the facts? She worked at days and missed her old shift, not only because she had often trouble sleeping at night. The outlook on the trial wasn't any better than it had been yesterday, rather worse than it had been before that day. So didn't it seem like things were going downhill?

However, the fact that Greg was back in her life had pushed the dark clouds into the background. Greg had told her as well that he was having the best day in a long time, so Sara could also be sure that she wasn't using him selfishly to make herself feel better.

Now she was sitting next to him, coffee mug in hand and listened to him talking. Considering the heat outside during the last few days, and the heat that would certainly come again later today, it was rather ironic that she was warming her hands on the hot coffee cup, but it fitted well into the setting. Greg had an arm around her and between kisses she was finally able to relax completely.

"Do you have time in the afternoon?" Greg asked.

"Mmh, I don't know," she started uncertainly. "You know the job."

"We could meet somewhere, have dinner later before I go to work..." he suggested.

Sara nodded, smiling. "I'd like that."

"It's nice," he said some moments later.

"Mmh." She knew that there wasn't much time left before she had to leave for work, but right now it was nice to pretend she didn't have to, as unusual as this sentiment was for her.

"So I pick you up at 4?"

"At the lab?"

He chuckled. "I guess. In case you're still working then, you can drop everything at my sight and..." he shrugged.

"I guess." Sara laughed lightly. "Do you... mind the others, you know?"

"I don't care," Greg said lightly. A moment later he added in a little more serious tone, "Really, I don't think they've been very helpful..."

"I know what you mean."

It hadn't only been Ecklie. First of all it had actually been Nick who had acted almost hostile towards Greg, after everything that had happened with Charlie. Sara couldn't really blame him for his protectiveness, even though she could for directing his anger into the wrong direction, but she hoped that they- Nick, Greg and her - had overcome this by now, and if they had not yet, that they would clear any resentment that was left soon. She certainly didn't want to give up on Nick's friendship, almost as much as she did not want to give up on Greg. Her conversation with Nick a few weeks ago let her hope that they would be alright. He had told her after all that he believed now that Greg had been good for her, so Sara was fairly optimistic, even though the talk had been in relation with Nick's worries about Greg's future.

It had not only been Nick (and Ecklie for that matter) who had shown opposition at the lab though. Grissom hadn't been helpful either, even though he might have thought he was only helping them with his warning hints.

Sara thought that Greg was right. It hadn't helped them at all, had only aggravated their own insecurities to have their co-workers talk like that. She could not imagine that they would have met that much opposition if Charlie had never come into their life.

So she decided that she wouldn't worry about them anymore. Admittedly, she would try not to, but while she was disentangling herself from Greg's hold, kissing him again quickly, she really felt that things might be alright, had to be alright.

"Pick me up at 4," she told Greg, confirming his earlier suggestion. "I'll call you in case I'm not at the lab."

Greg nodded. "Uh, I just remembered... I left my car..., you know."

Sara stopped in her movements, realizing that he was right. He had left his car at the courthouse parking lot when they had decided to go and eat something together. "Do you want to get it now?" she asked.

Greg shrugged. "I guess I have to, if I want to pick you up later."

"Yeah, I'll just drive you over there, and this afternoon you pick me up, and tonight we'll go to the lab together-"

"But no extra shifts for you," Greg interjected smirking.

"- so I can drive home then," Sara finished her sentence.

"It would be easier if we lived together," Greg said suddenly, and Sara was taken by surprise. She stared at him wondering if he had meant it seriously. He looked bashfully now, still smiling at her. "I mean, I'd like to live together with you one day, of course, I mean, I know we're just getting back on track together, and... I'd just like this to be something serious... I mean like in that sense of serious, not that I'd suddenly be all serious, you know..."

"Greg."

"Yeah." He was quiet now and she looked at him smiling, but didn't say anything for a moment.

Then she stepped towards the door. "Hurry up, I don't want to be late for work."

* * *

When Sara arrived at the lab, she immediately met the person she wanted to meet least, even though she could not avoid him on the long run anyway, seeing that he was her supervisor. Conrad Ecklie looked at her with something that could be considered a smile, and Sara chose to see it as that, since she had her optimistic day, as she reminded herself.

"Sara, it's good to see you again." To Sara's ears his tone sounded as if she hadn't been at the lab for weeks, although it had been only two days that she had been at court.

"It's good to be back," she returned, meeting his expression. She moved past him to go to the locker room, and he moved to walk along with her.

"You ready for an interesting case today?"

Sara wondered if it would mean that she wouldn't make her 4 PM date with Greg. "Does the case involve walking around in sewages?" she asked Ecklie nicely.

"You're always so distrustful," he replied, shaking his head slightly, before walking off to the left as they were just passing his office.

He returned a moment later, file in hand and gave it to her. Sara smirked briefly and walked off. Ecklie didn't know that she wouldn't have been opposed to any nice sewage wanderings. She would have liked it way more than the last two days at court, but she chose not to tell Ecklie. She didn't know what was up with him anyway. It wasn't like he had been openly hostile to her, at least not since he had moved her to days, but he had never been very friendly either.

While she turned into the locker room, Sara opened the file and saw that it was indeed nothing involving sewages, but she was not quite sure she wouldn't be knee deep into it.

* * *

Once Greg was back home, he started to pick up things that were lying on his floor randomly. It had probably not made a good impression on Sara, especially now that he had kind of blurted out his idea that they could live together some time. He figured that Sara preferred a little more order in her life. Greg grimaced as a picked up a very old sock of which he was not sure that he still owned a fitting second.

On the other hand, he didn't really think Sara had cared about that right now. Greg remembered Sofia telling him a few years back that no woman would be so very enthusiastic once she'd seen his apartment and he had caught a slight jealous vibe from Sara that Sofia had been to his place, and she hadn't. Greg chuckled. It was a funny memory. No, he didn't think the chaos in his place had been so important for Sara right now. She had appeared fairly happy to be with him again, and Greg felt elevated at that thought. That he and Sara would be back together wasn't really something he had dared hoping for.

Greg went about his day, thinking about little but his date with Sara in the afternoon. His next day at court wasn't scheduled until the next week (unless he had to go there for work), so he was quite able, and willing, to put it on the back of his mind. He knew that tomorrow the investigator from day shift would testify on the case, but Greg didn't plan to be there, and he was fairly sure that Sara would prefer to work rather than to sit through another court session.

It was half past three when he made his way to the lab, eager to be there early rather than late, when his phone that was lying on the passenger seat of his car started buzzing. Greg reached for it and saw Sara's name on the display.

He sighed. It would have been too good to be true... Expecting her to cancel or postpone their date, he answered the call, trying to keep the disappointment at bay at least as long as he knew that his guess was correct.

"Hey, Sara."

"Greg?"

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry," she started and Greg rolled his eyes. "I was knee deep in these... not very pleasant... surroundings, and I have to go back to the lab and take a shower because you really wouldn't want me not to..."

Greg laughed. "It's alright. I'll wait for you."

"Great. I'm on my way."

"See you in a few." Greg grimaced as he was driving up to the lab. It was almost like in old times.

Half an hour later he was sitting in the break room, coffee brewing behind him, when he saw Sara coming out of the direction of the showers. She was wearing a blue lab overall and her hair was still wet, as she was trying to put it behind her ears.

Greg jumped up. "Hey. Coffee's almost ready."

Sara laughed, as she joined him. "Date at work?"

"Nooo, we'll go somewhere else later, but I guess you have to dry and change first."

Sara sat down while Greg poured in two cups of coffee. "It's no wonder you're that hyper when you drink that much of it," she said.

Greg smiled. "Admit that you only manage so much overtime because of coffee."

"I don't plan to work anymore today."

"That's good to hear." Greg sat down at the table opposite of her.

Sara took a few sips from her cup, and doing the same, Greg watched her and saw that her expression grew more serious than before.

"Can I ask you one not exactly work-related question?"

"You can ask my as many work- or not work-related questions as you want," he returned slowly. "Why?"

"Well, I guess it's not the kind of question you really want to hear right now. I mean, this morning you said you're having a really good day, and I don't want to ruin that..."

Greg understood what she was referring to. "Just ask," he told her nevertheless.

"Have you talked to Charlie ever since...?" Sara wanted to know, looking at him apologizing.

After a moment, Greg nodded. "Nick and I talked about it. We thought it was a good idea that somebody went and talked to him, so I did. It didn't turn out well though. I wanted to know what exactly happened when... when I wasn't there, but he was perky, didn't tell me anything, of course, I shouldn't have expected him to do so."

Sara nodded, and Greg looked at the rest of his coffee, feeling the old guilt coming up again. Then he felt Sara's hand on his.

"We're going to move on from this, Greg."

He smiled, although he was not feeling very happy at this very moment, but Sara's assurance was reason enough for now.

"I'll change into something else and then we can leave," she said, standing up. "I'll be back in five minutes."

Greg nodded. "Don't be late."

**TBC**


	13. Suggestions

_**A/N: Mühsam ernährt sich das Eichhörnchen... **_

_**Thanks to WitchGirl for her help with this chapter! You are allowed to review :P**_

* * *

**Chapter 13: Suggestions**

He held her shoulders, pulling her closer to himself, pressing a kiss on her lips and when he let go she laughed quietly. They were standing next to her car in the garage of the lab. It was at night and Greg's shift was going to start in a few minutes, or had already started. Greg didn't really know at the moment.

Sara put a streak of hair behind her ear and Greg repeated the kissing, before she held up her hand.

"I think you have to go in now. You're going to be late."

Greg shrugged at first, but nodded then. "See you in the morning?" he asked, wondering if he wasn't too pushy. They hadn't seen much of each other for months, and had now just spent most of the day together, except for Sara's shift. He didn't want to overwhelm Sara in a bad way.

"Won't you need some sleep?" Sara returned.

"Uh, well, I thought we could have breakfast together. If you have time in the morning and no call out..." He was not sure how to interpret her objection: either she was just concerned or he was really too pushy.

"Breakfast would be nice."

Greg's face lit up. "Great. Meet you at 8?"

Sara nodded, and was about to move towards the door of her car, but Greg lingered for a moment.

"I wasn't sure you'd want to hang out again so soon," he told her honestly. Sara looked at him, before she nodded, smiling at him lightly.

"I understand."

He lingered still, even less willing to go.

"I can't wait to get into my bed?" Sara suggested with a slight grin.

Greg laughed and moved away, while Sara opened the door of the car and got in. Greg checked the time and realized that he was indeed late.

The first person he met was Nick who waved to him from the distance and motioned him to come over to him. Greg strode over to his friend who was waiting near the locker room. When he had come up to Nick, the other man pushed him gently into the locker room and Greg dropped down on the bench, turning to Nick frowning. The other man was standing with his back to the corridor.

"What's wrong?" Greg asked nervously. The next court day wasn't scheduled before tomorrow, Nick couldn't have any bad news Greg didn't already know, could he?

"You and Sara are back together?" The question came without any introduction.

At first Greg just stared at him. Then he wanted to ask how Nick knew, but didn't.

"What's wrong with that?" he questioned instead.

Nick frowned. "I didn't say it was wrong."

"But you think it is," Greg returned, his eyes directed at his shoes, before he looked up and met Nick's gaze again.

"I..."

Greg shook his head, wondering why he was even going into this discussion. They had had it before. He wanted to stand up, but Nick stopped him.

"No, I'm happy for you."

"So?" Greg questioned. "You called it a mistake." Greg remembered it still all too clearly Nick argueing with Sara, speaking out against her relationship with Greg.

There was a pause, before Nick nodded briefly. "Yeah, I did. But I changed my mind."

Greg didn't say anything. He had gladly noticed that Nick had become friendlier to him during the past months, but Sara had hardly been a topic between them, and certainly not their relationship.

"I saw that Sara... she avoided talking about you," Nick told him, "I don't know if she she didn't want to mention you because she was afraid I'd go off about you again, or if she was trying to get you out of her head. And... I don't think I've been a very good friend if Sara can't talk to me about what's troubling her."

"I think she was trying to get me out of her head," Greg said. "We weren't talking."

Nick nodded. "I'm sorry, Greg, about what I said. I was angry, and I was worried about Sara, but it wasn't my place to tell her what to do, or to blame you for what happened."

"We never even broke up," Greg told him, chuckling lightly.

Nick smiled. "I hope things will be alright for you."

"Thanks."

Nick patted Greg's shoulder and was about to leave when Greg called after him.

"You didn't tell me how you knew."

Nick reflected the other man's smile. "Word travels fast." He laughed. "And really, when you're having a date at the lab-"

"We didn't have a date at the lab," Greg returned. "We just met here."

Nick laughed again. "By the way, Grissom has a scene for us. Are you coming?"

"That's my job," Greg said, smiling at his friend.

* * *

Sara had come in early to make sure she could finish any work that might have piled up before she'd meet Greg for breakfast. When she had just given some samples to trace, Greg called and told her that they had to postpone breakfast by an hour as he was still out on a scene, so Sara went back to work.

When she finally went to the diner where she and Greg wanted to meet, he was not there yet, and she figured that the scene hadn't let him go so quickly. She ordered only a coffee at first, and was just looking out of the window when she saw both Greg and Nick walking over from the parking lot. Sara didn't know what to think of it, wondering if Nick knew about Greg and her, or if they would risk running into a new quarrel. Sara didn't need that at all. She also wondered why Greg was bringing Nick in the first place. Of course, it was simply nice of him to invite his friend as well, but she had thought they'd be alone. She figured that she would be okay with it, as long as it didn't evolve into another fight. She had been happy enough that things had calmed down during the last months.

Sara smiled as the two men entered the diner and came up to her table. Nick moved to sit down next to her and she glanced at Greg with an asking expression. He smiled at her, but didn't say anything besides a greeting. The three of them ordered breakfast and Sara glanced from Greg to Nick, and from Nick to Greg, and back.

"Have you two planned anything later today?" Nick asked, still smiling. Sara cast another questioning glance at Greg who still looked relaxed. Apparently Nick knew, either because Greg had told him or because he had figured it out with his mad CSI-skills. However, he seemed to be fine with it.

"Work," replied Sara anyway.

"I meant, you and Greg, together?" Nick clarified in a tone that told Sara that he knew indeed.

"We didn't talk about it yet," she said carefully. "Are you going to court today?" she added after a pause, and all three of them realized that she wasn't asking about any usual case.

Nick shook his head while Greg played with a napkin.

"Roger from days is going to testify. I've only helped out on the case. It's not really my place... you know," Nick explained.

"Yeah," Sara replied shortly. It was a relief when the waitress came with their food.

They ate in silence for a few minutes, Sara glancing up at Greg from time to time. He seemed to be focused on his food, maybe a little exaggeratedly focused.

"You had a good night?" Nick asked suddenly.

Sara nodded with a half-smile. "Yeah, it was good..." Reminding herself that it was perfectly okay, she added, "Greg and I had a great evening, and I had a good night's sleep for once."

"Good to hear," Nick replied earnestly.

"You two had an interesting night?" Sara tried to keep up the conversation, still feeling slightly awkward and wondering why this was the case if everything was alright between them.

"Yeah, pretty good," Greg said, finally taking part in the conversation as he had been noticeable silent before. Soon it was time for Sara to go back to work.

"See you later today?" she asked, rising from her chair.

"Yeah," Greg nodded. "I'll call you."

With another smile Sara left and Greg and Nick remained sitting alone.

"I'm sorry," Nick said some moments after Sara had left. "I shouldn't have come. You two weren't comfortable with me around, so much was clear."

"I told you you could come," Greg said, shaking his head. "Don't worry about it. Sara's still upset...It's not-"

"It wasn't just Sara," Nick returned.

Greg had to admit that Nick was right. It hadn't been only Sara. He couldn't really pin down why they were feeling at edge again so suddenly, just because Nick was around. He could somewhat understand Sara's initial apprehension though as she couldn't have know of Nick's change of heart.

"Yeah," Greg admitted. "I feel uncomfortable with the whole situation." Nick nodded and Greg continued, "Sara and I... I don't know. Things are sometimes so messed up, and I'm afraid that, at the end of it, Sara and I are just thrown together by these crazy circumstances and not..."

"Greg, Sara and you are together despite this crazy situation," Nick intervened.

"Yeah," Greg said shortly, sounding not very convinced. "I think I'm heading home," he added a moment later.

"Yeah, me, too," Nick agreed, rising from his chair, just when his phone started to ring.

Nick grimaced at Greg, guessing that his heading home was sabotaged either by the dayshift being swamped and needing him to help out, or by a breakthrough in one of his own cases. A glance at the display of his phone told him that it was Brass calling which strengthened his suspicion. He answered the call, only to hear Brass' grave voice.

"Nick, are you alone?"

Nick blinked surprised, sitting halfway back down on his chair. "No, I'm not. Why?"

"Who's with you?" Brass wanted to know.

"Greg," Nick replied without hesitation, looking at his friend who returned his gaze with a puzzled expression. Brass was silent for a moment, and Nick figured that the call had something to do with Greg.

"What happened?" Nick urged the other man.

"Last night there was a fire in the City Jail. It hasn't been cleared yet what caused the fire, but there was a lot of chaos and it's not clear yet whether somebody got away. There's one confirmed dead and four missing," Brass told him finally. "One of the missing people is Charlie Brody," he added, while Nick watched his friend who was still looking at him puzzled, unknowing.

**TBC **


	14. Speculations

_**A/N: New chapter ahead :) Leave a review on your way out :)**_

* * *

**Chapter 14: Speculations**

Sara was just getting out of her car at a scene, when she heard the familiar ringing of her phone. One glance told her that it was Greg. She smiled for a moment before her smile turned into a frown. It was nice that he was calling her, but he also knew that she had to work and didn't have time for chit-chat right now, even more so after they had just had breakfast together.

Sara kept looking down at her ringing phone, sighing. Maybe he wanted to talk about the awkwardness obviously both of them had felt during the meal, most likely because of Nick's presence. However, she really didn't have time for this now.

The officer who was waiting at the scene called out to her and Sara put her still ringing phone away. Greg was certainly persistent. She didn't want to shut off the call. So she hoped he'd give up soon. A moment later the ringing actually stopped and Sara tried to focus on the scene and the police officer in front of her.

Ten minutes later the ringing resumed. Sara rolled her eyes and confirmed with a glance at her phone that it was indeed Greg again. She turned away from the body on the ground, answering the call in a slightly annoyed tone.

"Yeah?"

"Sara-"

"Greg, I don't have time right now. I'm at a scene," she said quickly, adding, "I'm sorry."

"I need to talk to you."

Sara stood up from her previously crouched position, walking a few steps away from the body.

"Greg, I know things were uncomfortable this morning. You were really quiet," she said understandingly. "And that says something," she added with a short laugh, hoping to raise the mood. At this moment sounds coming from her phone gave her to understand that somebody else was calling her. "Hold on," she told Greg quickly, switching to the other caller before Greg had a chance to say anything.

"Sidle."

"Sara, where are you?" she could hear Brass' voice, frowning as to his urgent tone and behavior.

"At a scene in Henderson," she replied, wondering what was wrong, wondering if Greg's and Brass' calls had anything to do with each other.

She was growing slightly apprehensive, but reminded herself that Greg was fine, as she had heard only some seconds ago.

Had she?

"Is there an officer at your scene?" Brass asked now.

"Of course."

"Then stay there," he told her.

Sara was taken aback. What was this supposed to mean?

"It's not like the scene is going to work itself," she replied slightly sarcastically.

"Sara." Brass paused. "Okay, stay there, do your job. Just stay there. Somebody's going to come and get you back to lab later."

"Why? What's wrong?" Sara wanted to know in a fierce tone.

"We don't know for sure. We'll talk later," Brass said quickly and before Sara could say anything else, he had shut off the call. Sara stared at her phone for a moment, feeling somewhere between very confused and furious. Then she remembered that there was still Greg.

"Tell me what happened," she demanded in a rather unfriendly tone, having walked some steps away from the crime scene by now to have some privacy. When she wasn't met with an answer immediately, she asked, a little friendlier, "Greg, are you still there?"

"Yeah."

Sara smiled despite the situation. "Can you please tell me what's wrong?"

Greg didn't reply, and Sara frowned, wondering why Greg called her, but didn't come out with what he wanted now.

"Come on. Or do you want us to fight after all?" she added sharply, regretting it a moment later when she heard Greg's voice.

"Sara." He paused.

It couldn't have something to do with the trial, could it? Brass wouldn't call her and tell her to stay at the scene and plan to send somebody to get her back to the lab, if it was just something about the trial. Of course there was still the possibility that Greg's and Brass' problems didn't have anything to do with each other. Sara just wished Greg would finally tell her.

"There was a fire in the City Jail last night," he said finally, and Sara still didn't understand. She had turned back to the scene now, looking at the taped-off area from a few steps away. "They're not sure if somebody got away, as there was a lot of chaos, there's one confirmed dead and a few missing," Greg continued.

"I'm sorry," Sara said automatically, wondering why Greg was telling her that.

"Charlie is missing, too," Greg said now, sounding as if he was going to be sick.

Sara felt suddenly cold, and was unable to keep away the knot that seemed to form in her stomach. "Do you think-?"

"They didn't know," Greg replied. "Rescue hadn't cleared part of the area yet."

Sara understood now why both Greg and Brass had called. At the same time, however, she didn't. She realized that it was very possible that Charlie was on the run, if he wasn't lying dead somewhere, but she didn't agree with Brass' obvious assessment that he was any danger for her.

If he was on the run, he was, in her opinion, doing exactly that, running. He wouldn't risk getting caught by coming anywhere near her.

Sara realized that she would have to say something to Greg at some point. She sighed.

"Brass called me, too. He didn't tell me what was wrong, but he told me to stay at the scene and that somebody would come and get me back to the lab later." She figured it it was only fair towards Greg to tell him everything she knew.

"Do you want me to come?" he asked.

"No, don't come," Sara declined, thinking that Greg getting her didn't make the situation any better than her going back alone, both in reality and in the perception of people like Brass. "You need sleep. Go home," she told him. "Or don't," she added, realizing that if Charlie would try anything he wouldn't go for her. There had never been a personal connection between them. He had been Greg's friend. He had apparently thought he acted on Greg's wishes, as crazy as this was. He wouldn't go after her, he'd go after Greg. "Maybe... maybe you shouldn't go to your place." Charlie knew where Greg was living. Greg had not moved after what had happened, refusing to let himself drive out of a place he liked by what Charlie had done.

"I can go to the lab," Greg suggested. "I can catch a nap there."

"Yeah," Sara said slowly. "Yeah, I'll come there later."

"Okay."

"Okay, Greg. Take care, won't you?"

"I will," Greg promised. "You're sure I shouldn't come and get you?"

"I'll be alright. Talk to you later," she added quickly, willing to end the call, as she knew she would only prolong it forever, if she let her worries run freely, or if she gave Greg more opportunity to argue about coming.

Sara put her phone away, looking down at the scene again, staring at the man who was lying there, dead, and she realized that her situation could be worse, much worse.

* * *

Greg had not even thought about catching a nap once he had arrived at the lab. About two hours ago, he had said goodbye to Nick who had gone home, admittedly reluctantly, but realizing that he wouldn't be of any help if he was too tired, not that he could do much right now anyway. Greg had been aware that the same counted for him, but at first he had called Sara, learning that she had already heard the news from Brass. Sara had made him promise, reasonably, that he wouldn't go to his place.

Greg hadn't really thought about it before. He had not thought about Charlie in relation to himself. He had only thought of Sara.

Now he was walking around in the lab anxiously, annoying a whole lot of people by poking his head into rooms without doing anything useful. He knew he should get that nap he had talked of earlier, but he was too nervous to sleep. He would have to wait until Sara was back, at the least.

He had finally sat down for a moment, when he saw her suddenly walking up to him. Brass was following on her heels and Greg guessed that he had taken it into his own hands to get Sara back to the lab. Sara's whole posture told Greg how little happy she was with the situation.

He smiled at her, but she didn't return the expression.

"We need to talk," Brass said gravely and both Sara and Greg looked at him, Sara nodding after a moment. "I mean Greg," the detective clarified.

Sara raised her eyebrows. "Why-?"

Brass looked at Greg. "Can we go somewhere?"

Sara's gaze went from Brass to Greg who shrugged, feeling somewhat helpless and confused. Brass motioned him to lead the way and Greg moved forward. Brass joined him and told him, quieter than before, "I don't want to turn this into an interrogation..."

"What are you talking about?" Sara questioned sharply, and Greg knew she wasn't asking them to repeat what Brass had said.

"I, we, just need to clear a few things," Brass told her.

"You can do this right here and now," Sara declared unhappily.

Greg was nervous, glancing from Sara to Brass. "We could go into the break room," he suggested to the latter. Brass nodded and Greg stepped into the break room.

Before the door had even closed, Brass started asking, "Has Brody contacted you?"

Greg shook his head decidedly, frowning. "No, he hasn't."

Greg had turned to Brass who was standing with his back to the now closed door. Greg could see Sara through the open blinds of the windows that made up most of one side of the room. She was still standing in the hallway, and while he could see her form, he wasn't able to discern her expression very well. Neither did he know if she had heard Brass' questions.

"Are you sure?" Brass insisted.

Greg shook his head again. "I haven't heard anything."

"You don't need to worry-" Brass started, but Greg interrupted him.

"Do you even know if he got away? Last thing I heard was that he was 'missing'," he pointed out, slightly stung by Brass' implication that he wasn't telling about something he knew because he was was worried about the consequences.

"They've cleared most of the area. There's one small part they couldn't get into yet, but they don't think somebody's there."

Greg nodded, wondering what the odds were.

"It's a mess," Brass confirmed his thoughts. "Do you have any idea where he could've gone?" he continued after a moment.

Greg shook his head once again. "No, I don't." He rubbed his forehead, feeling as if he was on the stand in court again. "We were never close buddies, and our relationship hasn't really improved lately."

Brass raised his eyebrows at Greg's slightly sarcastic tone. "Look," he said, "I care about Sara. I care about you..."

Greg was silent.

"So I want to make sure that nothing happens," the other man continued.

"I wish I could help you," Greg said. "But I can't."

Brass nodded gravely, but acceptingly, and Greg glanced out of the room into the hallway to where Sara had been standing.

"Where did Sara go?" he asked, surprised at not seeing her there anymore.

* * *

Sara had heard Brass asking Greg if Charlie had contacted him. The question had hit her about as much as Brass' earlier statements.

She knew Greg didn't have any contact to Charlie and she didn't want him to be dragged into the whole mess anymore.

She watched Greg shaking his head as she had expected. Brass kept asking questions that she wasn't able to hear through the closed door, but Greg seemed to negate all of them. She saw Greg talking and tried to force herself to be able to read lips like Grissom could, but she failed and tired of only being able to watch, but not to understand a word, she turned around and walked off.

She needed work. Work outside somewhere, preferably. In short: She needed a scene and she was sure there was one, knowing this city all too well. She just needed to find somebody who was willing to give her one and who wouldn't bother about Charlie.

And Ecklie was her boss after all.

He made it easy for her, for once. She told him that she had logged in all the evidence from her previous scene, was awaiting results now, and was therefore free to work another assignment. He willingly gave her one he had been about to work himself in lack of available people to order to go. It was only a breaking and entering into a store, but it was good enough for Sara.

Sara left the lab quickly, hoping to avoid Greg as well as Brass. In her opinion they could hash out the problem by themselves. She wasn't going to be part of that anymore, she really should not need to be either. To be fair to Greg, it wasn't his part either. He had done enough, had had to deal with enough and now he had to deal with it once again, only because everybody assumed that Charlie would contact him. Even if Charlie did exactly that, Greg would tell somebody about it first thing, wouldn't he? There was no need at all to bother him with those questions, as Brass had done.

Sara realized that she was angry. Of course, this was also the reason why she had so eagerly taken Ecklie's case, just to be out of the lab.

She also had to admit that people did maybe not trust fully in Greg's complete cooperation in all things Charlie, after everything that had happened after the kidnapping, although it hadn't been Greg's idea to hide certain facts, but Sara's.

In any way, Sara knew that Greg would inform them immediately if Charlie contacted him by any means, being way too worried about her, and it was crazy to consider that he wouldn't.

To add to everything, they did not even know if he was still alive.

And did anybody talk about those other three who were missing? They could be a much greater danger than that stupid-

Sara took a deep breath, trying to calm and focus on the scene she was approaching and the store owner who was waiting impatiently together with the police officer who had called it in.

The scene was simple enough. Sara got an overview, took pictures, could confirm easily enough that the store's window had been smashed from the outside, and was even able to get a few prints from both the broken window and the cash register.

The only difficulty had been that more and more nosy bystanders had arrived and the police officer had all hands full to keep them from crossing the crime scene tape. Although the case was certainly not very interesting, Sara figured that they just wanted to see her in action, but was glad that she didn't have to deal with keeping them out of the scene. The noise outside grew louder though with the passing time, and when Sara looked into her kit to put back the print powder, she also glanced at her phone and saw that she had missed a call, having probably not heard it with all the racket outside. She took the phone to keep it on her now, figuring that Greg had tried to call her again.

She wasn't very available for him today, but she had to deal with herself first anyway. She knew she would have to make it up to him, but she was very ready to do that, later that was.

Sara went out on the street again to get another view on the store. At first the noise grew even louder, but then people seemed to try to be quiet, maybe anxious that they'd miss anything interesting.

This time Sara could hear her phone clearly. She took it and glanced at the display, seeing an unknown number there. She frowned and walked into the store again to give her some illusion of privacy.

"Sidle."

"Hello!"

"Who's there?" Sara asked, although the slight shiver that went over her gave her an idea.

"Oh, we know each other. We've seen each other the other day, you know." Charlie laughed happily, and Sara tried to calm her fast beating heart, wondering if she should not just end the call, wondering if he was standing somewhere outside in the crowd that was making a racket again.

"Where did you get my number?" she questioned.

"From Greg, of course."

**TBC**


	15. Sense

A/N: Okay, here's a little challenge: I ask somebody to review who has not done so before. :)

Thanks for reading! :)

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**Chapter 15: Sense**

"_Where did you get my number?" she questioned._

"_From Greg, of course." _

"You're lying," Sara blurted out, before she could stop herself.

"I'm not," Charlie replied, sounding too certain for Sara's liking. It couldn't be. The thought whirled around in her head, while Charlie continued talking about something that Sara was not really listening to.

"Oh, shut up," she said finally, realizing that she should just shut off the call and doing so. She looked around, remembering that she had finished at the scene, wondering what to do, what to think. She had the firm belief that nothing what Charlie had said was true. There was no doubt in this. But why did she feel so doubtful then? Why did she feel that she had to go somewhere where she was alone, and could just think, where she didn't feel like everybody outside was still watching her?

Sara looked at the smashed window of the shop. She would not believe anything Charlie said, she knew all too well that he was not quite right in the head. Nevertheless, there was still the question where he had actually gotten her number. There were ways to obtain it, of course, and she believed easily enough that he would tell her he got it from Greg just to mess with her. On the other hand, as far as she remembered, Charlie had usually told the truth – or more precisely, what he believed to be the truth. He had usually made his own messed up sense of reality known. So in a way he did maybe believe that Greg had actually helped him in contacting Sara, however this had actually happened, considering that Greg had said that he had not had any contact with him. Not lately that was, as Sara remembered that Greg had visited Charlie in jail a while ago, as he had told her. She could not imagine Greg handing Charlie her phone number back then. This one did not make any sense either.

She needed to think clearly. There had been rational solutions to way more absurd situations. And maybe, the now needed solution would even tell them where Charlie was.

Her phone rang again and seeing that it was the same number as before, she answered the call, and told Charlie in a fierce voice, "Don't call me again."

She figured that tracking the call was probably a solution, but she was here, pretty much alone at the scene, safe for all those people enjoying the show outside on the street, and there was not much she could do. She shut off the call again, knowing that she would have to call somebody herself now.

She did it reluctantly, guessing that everybody would pester her even more so now, but she figured that she had no choice. Packing her last stuff back into her kit, she closed it and dialed Brass' number.

"Hey, it's Sara."

"Sara, where are you?" Brass asked indignantly, and Sara remembered that she had basically sneaked out of the lab, leaving Greg behind with Brass.

"I'm at a scene," she replied matter-of-factly.

"Ah," Brass left it at that for the moment. "So why are you calling?" he wanted to know, sounding as if she'd interrupted him in his Sunday morning sleep. "I guess it wasn't to tell me where you are," he added laconically.

"Charlie called me." She said it almost resignedly, unwilling to face all the trouble that would be connected with it. She wanted him back behind bars, of course, but was pretty sure that it would rather increase the security level that was deemed necessary for her.

"He called you?"

"Yeah, I shut him off, figured that it would be of no use to talk to him, as the call wasn't tracked or anything, and he was doing the crazy-talk again-"

"Sara, where are you?" Brass interrupted.

"201 Maudlin Street," she replied. "People have piled up outside, enjoying the show. I hope they're going to move on at some point."

"Okay, stay inside and wait until I come over," Brass decided.

"Jim, you can't come and get me from every damn scene. I'm going to finish up here and come back to the lab anyway." Sara knew Brass did not like this, but she liked his suggestion even less. "I don't think Brody is around here," she offered in order to calm him. "He didn't say he was here, and I'm sure he would've, if he were anywhere around here, watching me." Once she had said it, Sara wasn't quite sure anymore that mentioning this scenario was a smart move.

She thought she heard a grumble, but apparently Brass chose not to answer.

"I'll see you at the lab," she added quickly, and ended the call, before Brass had any chance to say anything more. Sara sighed. If things kept going on like this, she wouldn't get any scenes to work anymore. She wondered how much Ecklie knew by now. That he was still blissfully ignorant she could only hope.

She picked up her things and made sure once more that she had done everything she could do at the scene, before she walked out of the building, closely watching the crowd that had slowly started to dissolve. When people realized that she was on her way out, several more of them turned around, obviously deciding it was time to go for them as well. Sara was glad not to detect a familiar face among them. Before she got into her car, she could nevertheless not help glancing back to see if anybody was exhibiting more than the usual curiosity. Nobody seemed to be looking her way, and Sara opened her car, frowning at both her nervousness and the upcoming spectacle that awaited her at the lab.

* * *

The next person the frown fell upon was Greg who had been lurking around the reception, waiting for her. He greeted her, apparently relieved to see her, and Sara returned the greeting, but didn't stop to chat, walking swiftly past him towards the locker room, as she had not decided yet what she actually wanted to say to Greg. She wasn't sure if she wanted to repeat Charlie's claims, figuring they were too ridiculous to even bother Greg with them. On the other hand, maybe Greg had an idea after all how Charlie could have obtained her number which might even lead them to the man himself ultimately. Additionally - although Sara would not have admitted it happily - she was frustrated, most of it at the situation itself, but as she could not successfully vent her frustration at something untouchable as a situation, she found a willing victim in Greg.

So when Greg had caught up with her, and she had cast everything she wanted inside her locker, she turned around to face him.

"Charlie told me you'd given him my number," she declared, curious on Greg's reaction.

"What?" was Greg's exclaim she was rewarded with. "I didn't-"

Sara shrugged. "I know." She was even unwilling to hear Greg's unnecessary assertions. "Come," she said, taking his arm and as he stepped closer to her, she leaned in to kiss him, hoping to relax some of the tension she was feeling.

"Okay, I guess you believe me before I've even really said something," Greg said finally. "That's a nice touch, for a change." Sobering up, he added, "What happened? Brass wasn't really explicit."

"Charlie called me. He didn't say anything substantial as far as I'm aware of, besides that he claimed you gave him my number, of course," Sara explained.

"Wait, but you don't think...?"

Sara shook her head. "No, not really." She smirked. "I know that he likes to make up his own reality, and that's really a ludicrous claim. There's still the question how he got it though."

"If not from me," Greg contributed.

"Well, I had left that unsaid."

"I don't know," Greg admitted, returning to the question at hand.

"Well, if you knew, I would have liked to know beforehand anyway that I'm to expect such a nice call."

Greg lifted his eyebrows, sensing her mood, if he had not already done so before.

"So what are we going to do?" he asked carefully.

"I'm going to drop off what I got from that fantastic breaking-and-entering that attracted so many people, and then I'm heading home."

Greg nodded. "Okay, I guess I'll do that, too. Well, head home, I don't have any evidence to drop off."

Sara remembered the original reason for Greg being at the lab now and also his earlier encounter with Brass.

"How did your interview with Brass go?" she wanted to know, while they were walking out of the room, Sara on her way to the trace lab and Greg apparently accompanying her.

Greg's expression darkened. "He asked me if Charlie had contacted me."

"No, not necessary, as he called me," Sara interjected. Greg glanced at her, but his expression remained serious.

"He also wanted to know if I had any idea where he could've gone, but I could only tell him that I had no idea, and then we noticed you'd disappeared."

"I went to work. This isn't my definition of 'disappearing'," Sara pointed out.

Greg stopped. "Sara, if this weren't so serious-"

Sara stopped as well, glaring at him. "Greg, this guy is nuts."

"The more impor-"

"I'm not going to hide in corners because of him."

"Nobody expects you to," Greg said, looking at her openly.

"Good."

"Good."

Sara sighed, motioning him to move on. "I'm going to be careful. As usual."

"Yeah, as usual," Greg nodded.

"But you, too."

**TBC**


	16. Smouldering

_**A/N: I didn't have a lot of drive to write lately, but was carried along by Emmithar's enthusiasm during the last two days ;) I posted a new story, for Robin Hood BBC, yesterday, in case anybody is interested :D So much for the advertisements lol **_

_**Thanks to Em for the beta. Any mistakes still in there are mine. I hope you enjoy. :)**_

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**Chapter 16: Smouldering**

Sara wasn't quite sure if everything had come to a screeching halt, or if things were speeding up faster than she could follow. Recently it had appeared as if everything she did was focused on the trial, so the rest of her life seemed to have come to a stop. This wasn't the first time she had felt this happening, it had happened often that her job had taken over so much when there had been a major crisis, that her life outside her job had been limited to a minimum.

On the other hand, now there was the sudden jump forward in her relationship to Greg. That was the positive side. The negative one was that she felt as if she wasn't in control, a feeling that gave her the impression that everything went by way too fast, faster than she could find a way out. Then Charlie had escaped, things seemed to have gone completely crazy, while further court sessions were postponed.

Today she had chosen to pretend as if things were normal; however one would define normal in this case. She had not slept for long, had taken care of a few things at home, and had returned to the lab before even ten hours had passed. She wasn't quite sure what she actually wanted there. There was of course always plenty of work to bury herself in, but as normal as she pretended things to be, she knew that old case files were not really on her mind.

Greg wasn't here, of course. He wasn't as crazy as she was, as much as she had, maybe involuntarily, tried to make him become so. He would get a good night's sleep, would maybe call upon a few friends.

He wasn't like her. Of course he had a lot on his mind as well, maybe with more reason to worry than Sara, but he had most of the times seemed to be able to deal with it better. Or he just didn't act as openly destructive as she did, as everybody could see when she walked back into the lab after three hours of sleep.

She didn't really know what was on her mind, but she hoped it wasn't Charlie. She would certainly be angry with herself if he were able to discomfort her any further. He had brought her enough trouble in the past, in the very recent one as well.

Before she had gone to bed, she had made a quick call to the administration of the lab to ask if there was any possibility that Charlie could have gotten her phone number from there. It had been negated. Sara had only been able to thank them for the information at present, unable to do anything more at that point. She could only hope Charlie had not received any more information, from wherever he had them anyway. She really wasn't keen on meeting him at her front door.

She didn't meet many people at the lab, but saw only a few lab techs working in their respective labs.

She wandered along the corridor aimlessly at first, before she decided to turn into the room that held the recent case files. In a sudden urge, she glanced down the corridor, seeing nobody there, but closed the door behind her anyway. She pulled out a drawer, knowing now exactly what she was searching for. What she didn't realize at first was that she wasn't searching for the right thing. She had looked under Greg's name, naturally associating him with the case, but the file she pulled out wasn't the one she was looking for. Of course, the case would be filed under her name.

It wasn't very far from where she had returned the other file into the drawer. Sanders and Sidle.

Sara finally pulled out the one she was looking for, glancing at the small table in the room, contemplating to sit down to study the file there, but deciding to take it with her. With some pangs of conscience she took another, random file that she could pretend to be reading if the need should arise.

She made her way into an empty layout room and sat down there. The case file had been worked on by quite a number of people in the lab which wasn't unusual at all. Besides the signatures from a day shift CSI and several lab techs, Sara recognized Nick's as well. The last note in the file was written in Nick's handwriting, too; a note that further court sessions had been postponed which set back further statements by the lab as well.

Sara browsed through the pages filled with content she already knew. She had been there after all. Then she came to the parts that were more interesting. She found photos of duct tape. Duct tape that Charlie had used to bind her hands and feet together. The pictures showed the tape after they had been treated so that finger prints became visible. The print analysis was on the next page. There had been Charlie's prints. And Greg's. There was another note that said that Charlie's had been under Greg's, so that they concluded that Charlie had used the tape at first and Greg later. Sara realized that Greg's prints must have gotten onto it, when he removed the tape from her feet before he had brought her into the cabin. It didn't really improve or worsen Greg's situation. It was in accordance with his statement after all.

Still, Sara would have preferred to not have Greg's prints all over the evidence.

Sara continued to leaf through the file, finding more evidence of Greg's involvement, nothing less that she had expected. Then she came to a record about the cabin. According to the investigation, Charlie had rented it alone, several days prior to the kidnapping. At least something in that Greg wasn't involved.

The file moved on to the car that had been used and had several notes about Sara's hair being found in the trunk, and Greg's on the backseat. Greg had stated that he had been sitting on the passenger's seat on the way out of the city. Sara guessed that Charlie had brought him home, unconscious, on the backseat, probably at the same time when he had thrown her out in the wood.

Sara shivered, glancing at the door involuntarily, seeing that it was shut and that a draft coming from there did apparently not exist.

There were more things about Greg. The analysis of the shirt he had worn had shown that it was drenched in beer. No bottles had been found anywhere. Nobody, besides Greg and Charlie, could tell whether Greg had been drinking excessively or whether Charlie had indeed spilled the alcohol over him to make it plausible for the neighbors when he brought him home passed out, as Greg had stated.

And Charlie's letter. It was the next piece of evidence Sara found. Her expression grew hard when she read the letter, Charlie apparently considering the whole incident a good piece of fun. The letter confirmed Greg's story that he had passed out and had found himself back at his apartment, not knowing what had happened to Sara. A graphological assessment had led to the result that it was indeed Charlie's writing. The probability of Greg having fabricated the letter was estimated as very small.

Sara closed the file. This didn't lead anywhere.

She looked out into the corridor, the half-open blinds protecting her somewhat from view from outside. She saw one of the last people she wanted to see making his way past the room now, and was glad that Ecklie had apparently not seen her. He turned around the corner and was gone from her sight.

She didn't like this. She had not even known so far how much evidence there was that incriminated Greg. There was some that disburdened him, but it didn't mean much in the whole.

So far she had thought it was bad after the first court sessions, after her statement. She had assumed things would improve once the lab's evidence would be presented. She felt like throwing the file in her hand away, very far away, burning it preferably, but she knew all too well, of course, that she couldn't do that. It was a silly thought, a silly sentiment that was.

Her throat seemed to be getting tighter, her breathing more strained, the longer she was sitting there, staring at the now closed file. A quiet sob escaped her; she stifled it, deciding that she needed to return the file, before anybody was searching for it. She stood up, the file and the second one she had brought held tightly in her hands.

She was on the way to the filing room, when around her the fire alarm blasted off, Sara flinching in surprise. The sounds were banging through the corridor and Sara looked around searching for the source of the alarm.

People were starting to run around hectically, and Sara decided that she needed to get out of the building as well. Moving forward towards the room where she wanted to restore the files before she made her way out, she did not see Ecklie coming back around the corner.

He caught her sight and called, "Sara, come, we need to get out of here."

"Is there really a fire?" Sara questioned, it being the first response that came to her mind that might reasonably explain why she would not go outside directly.

Ecklie stared at her. "Sara, this isn't the time for discussions."

"I need to put those files back," she said weakly.

"If this place burns down, this doesn't matter anymore," Ecklie replied dryly and Sara admitted to herself that he was speaking the truth. "So it would actually be better to take them with you," he pointed out.

She was still standing nailed to the spot.

"Anyway, come on now," Ecklie urged her. "No more discussions, or it will be suspension for endangering the safety of a CSI and the lab director."

Sara looked at him darkly, but realized that she not only had no choice, but that he was right. She tucked the files under her arm, hoping she would be able to restore them later. So far nobody would know which files they were.

Ecklie led the way and Sara followed him, noticing that they seemed to be the last people who left the building. She also noticed that there was no smoke anywhere, so she could not imagine that a fire was actually burning somewhere.

Sara swallowed, only now remembering the day when Greg's DNA lab had exploded. She still remembered the smell, and the sharp pain of the wounds the glass had caused her, a pain she had not even realized at first, too shocked seeing Greg flying through the lab, his head dropping down in front of her eyes when he passed out.

Greg wasn't even around now. He was safe at home, as far as she knew.

He was in another kind of trouble though, and Sara wished that there would be flames flaring in the lab after all, where she could throw in all the evidence she was carrying under her arm.

**TBC**


	17. Skepticism

**A/N: Thanks to Emmithar for her great help with and inspiration for this chapter :D **

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**Chapter 17: Skepticism**

The entire staff of the lab had assembled outside, curious bystanders mixing in with them as well.

Sara could hear the sound of the approaching fire brigade, but she was still not convinced that there was actually a fire inside the lab. She had not seen any signs of it on her way out and the expressions of the other employees showed confusion rather than worry.

Sara had walked as far away from Ecklie as possible, without losing sight of the entrance of the lab. She still carried the files she had read earlier, but nobody wondered about that, several other people carrying paperwork they had just been about to take care of as well. Sara was busier pondering over what she had read earlier, about the case, about Greg, especially about Greg, than paying attention to the things going on around her.

People were now ushered to move farther away from the lab, the sounds of the sirens telling Sara that the fire trucks were no more than a block away now. She suspected that it was a false alarm though, either by a defect of the alarm or by somebody setting it off falsely. It wouldn't be the first time. She did not lose many thoughts to it. Soon the building would be cleared, and things would go back to normal, but her problems would still be there. She didn't know what do it. Actually, it wasn't just like she could not decide which alternative to choose, she didn't even see any ways in that she could do anything. This made it only worse.

Sara moved to the back of the crowd, while people followed the prompts to walk further away now. The noise in the street was increasing more and more. Sara made her way between two parked cars on the side of the street and walked a little further on the sidewalk, turning to look back at the lab in the distance where the fire crew was pulling up now.

The files in her arms were growing heavy and she was wondering what to do with them, when somebody pushed against her. She stumbled to the side, the files falling to the ground, and people moving out of the way, but paying no further attention to her.

Then her hand was grabbed and she was pulled around the corner. She had hardly time to react, but when she registered who it was, she reached for her gun, realizing quickly then that she did not have it with her, having left it in her locker while she was working at the lab. Her phone was probably feeling lonely in the filing room.

Charlie looked at her, smiling. She stared back, until her brain seemed to be working again, and she took a step back to walk away, figuring that he would not be able to stop her.

"Don't do that," Charlie replied calmly.

"Why wouldn't I?" Sara returned, trying to sound just as calm. "There are many people on the street here, and you're one who should be taken off it."

"I just want to talk," he said, motioning her to walk on. Sara kept standing where she was, trying to look around while still keeping an eye on Charlie.

"There's nothing to talk about," Sara returned coldly.

"Greg thinks differently, I guess," the man answered, sending a shiver over Sara.

She tried to not get alarmed by what he said, tried to keep a calm appearance, unwilling to encourage him additionally.

"He likes talking," Charlie went on.

"You don't know anything about Greg," Sara's voice didn't hold any more warmth than before.

"Well, we didn't have much time last time we talked, but we've known each other for a pretty long time. Longer than you know him, I'd say," he told her cheerfully.

"That's enough," she shook her head, again turning to go.

"What's this, by the way?" Charlie asked now, pointing at the files that were lying on the pavement a few feet away.

"It's none of your business," Sara said, stepping some paces back, but watching him. She was nervous, although she was telling herself that she needed neither to be nervous nor scared of him. The street was full of people, most of them ignoring the two, but being there none the less.

At this moment Charlie skipped forward and picked up the papers.

"Give them to me," she told him quickly, regretting it the very second she realized that she had just informed him that she cared about what he was holding in his hands. It was ironic, considering that she had felt like destroying those files herself few minutes earlier, but now wanted to have them back. Life was certainly not fair, Sara decided.

Charlie opened the first file nevertheless, looking through the pages curiously. Sara's heart was beating violently, as she was staring at the papers in his hands. She was in trouble anyway, if anybody discovered she had taken the files, and she didn't even want to imagine the nightmare of having to explain how the case file got into the suspects hands.

After a few moments Charlie frowned, and closed the folder. "Boring," he decided and threw the papers in front of her feet. Sara picked them up, glancing at the upper folder, seeing that Charlie had been looking through the random second one she had taken, not noticing the other one that was about his case. She turned again, ready to walk away. He couldn't hold her.

"Hey, where are you going?"

Sara did not answer, but marched past him, her heart still racing in her chest.

"You don't want to know about Greg?" Charlie asked, sounding strangely surprised. Sara stopped, but did not turn around. "So you do want to know?" the man went on.

"What about Greg?" Sara asked, looking ahead on the street where still a mass of people was streaming along. Anybody who would see her and Charlie would be thinking they were just having a normal discussion, an argument maybe. Sara knew that she could walk away, could have been walking away the whole time, but something in her was holding her back now.

"Greg, you and I could have another talk," Charlie replied.

"I have enough of this and Greg isn't interested in talking to you either," Sara said, turning her head around to him. "And don't you dare come anywhere near him," she added.

"Too late," Charlie shot out.

"What?"

"Greg and I had a nice little chat earlier today, although not long enough in my opinion. He wasn't keen on the idea at first either, but I convinced him," he explained.

Sara looked at him, frowning, her mind racing, trying to determine the meaning of his words, trying to find out if he was even telling the truth. Greg would have called her if the man had been by his place, wouldn't he?

"Why did you not say that earlier?" she asked, thinking it over carefully.

"Oh, well I told you now. So what is it? You want to come?" Charlie shrugged, and Sara got the feeling that he was making things up the more he went along.

"Tell me what's with Greg."

Charlie smiled and Sara's patience was gone completely now. She was on an open street, she had the files back, Charlie was not armed as far as she could tell, and nothing was holding her here. She should have left long ago.

"Stay here or it won't end well for Greg," the man said suddenly, and as much as he had sounded simply crazy so far, he sounded threatening now, and Sara became aware once again that the nutcase appearance of the man could deceive you as to how dangerous he really was.

"I don't believe you," she said nevertheless, holding on the rational part of her mind that said that Charlie was only taunting her, that he was making everything up to torment her more. He had nothing in his hands, or he would have told her earlier. She was sure that he was talking nonsense, that Greg was at home, sleeping, or watching TV, or playing video games perhaps, or whatever he would be doing.

"Come on."

Sara frowned at him, convinced that the man was making it up now, trying to throw her off guard.

"If you don't believe me, you can walk away now," Charlie shrugged again. "Or you come and I'll show you that I'm telling you the truth."

Sara almost laughed at the absurdity of him thinking she would come with him, after everything that he had done. "Little children learn that they shouldn't believe crap like that. I don't care anymore about anything you're saying. You've been enough trouble for both Greg and me, and I won't let you continue doing that," she said firmly, turned and walked finally off, heading in the direction of the lab.

"You're doing Greg no good," Charlie called after her, but she ignored him. She knew she should be doing more to stop him here and now, but she also knew that nobody could expect her to act alone, nobody would actually okay her acting on her own; she needed back-up.

She had not even noticed that the firemen had gone into the lab and come out of it again, finding no signs of a fire that needed to be extinguished. They were about to leave, when Sara marched up to the entrance of the lab, the way open again. She could see Ecklie talking to one of the fire-fighters, but Ecklie wasn't the man she wanted to talk to. A glance around found Brass to Sara's great relief and she hurried towards him, unaware how upset she was looking.

"Sara, what's wrong?" Brass asked her directly. "There was no fire after all, huh?"

"It's not about the fire," Sara said quickly. "It's Charlie Brody." She had certainly Brass' undivided attention now. "He's there, down the street," she went on. "Well, was there, as I don't believe he's sticking around."

Brass called for back-up immediately. "Do you know if he's armed?"

"I don't know for sure: I didn't see any weapon."

Brass nodded, starting to move down the street himself, but motioning Sara to stay where she was. He jogged away from her quickly and Sara watched him apprehensively. More officers were turning up on the street now, mixing with the other people, trying to clear the area. Few minutes later Brass returned, shaking his head.

"Didn't see him anywhere."

Sara nodded. She had not expected anything else. "Maybe I should've-" she started, but Brass cut her off.

"No, you shouldn't. It was right not to go after him on your own. I'm glad you didn't."

Sara nodded again, still unhappy with the whole situation.

"Did he see you?" Brass asked now, walking with her into the lab.

"Yeah," Sara answered carefully, rather unwilling to disclose everything that had passed. It had to stop that Charlie was able to play with her. And Brass had reacted badly enough on Charlie calling her. If she told him that he had apparently met her here on purpose, had maybe even his hands in the false alarm at the lab, Brass would probably lock her up and not let her leave the lab without a police escort anymore.

"He talked some nonsense," she told him, and Brass nodded, but looked at her expectantly, inviting her to say more. "He didn't give me his current address," she added, in an attempt at a joke, but Brass only lifted his eyebrows.

"Call me, if you remember anything else," he said, guessing that she was not able or willing to tell him anything more now.

She smiled faintly. "Yeah. I need to bring these back now," she said, waving with the files in her hands.

"Do that," he nodded again and walked down the corridor, while Sara made her way to the filing room, wondering briefly what she should do about suspect's prints on case files.

She found her phone indeed lying in the room, and picked it up to call Greg, once she had put those uncomfortable files back where they belonged.

**TBC**


	18. Suspicion

**A/N: So, Em and I have been joking that we could be all "Reviews, or Greg dies!" I won't do that though, but am nice and update lol. Thanks to Emmithar for the beta :D**

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**Chapter 18: Suspicion**

Sara heard the phone ring for as many times as it could until Greg's mailbox answered. She left a message, telling him to call her back and to take care, before she hung up.

It was the second time she had tried to call him and again he had not picked up. She was still telling herself that this wasn't unusual, that there were so many reasons why he could not be picking up. On the other hand she knew that he should have his phone in reach, in case anybody wanted to call him about work. The second time she had tried had been fifteen minutes after her first attempt, so it wasn't like he had simply been in the bathroom.

It needed a third try, half a minute after the second, that Sara admitted to herself that she was worried. Under normal circumstances she wouldn't have been concerned. She would have been angry, potentially, if she had been trying to reach Greg for a case, and he wouldn't have answered her call, but she would not have assumed anything to be wrong, apart from Greg's habits.

Now it was different though. The lab had just settled down again after the false alarm. She had restored the files she never should have taken, guiltily wiping of any potential prints. The back-up Brass had called to go after Charlie had withdrawn.

She had come back to the lab less than an hour ago and had spent the time trying to calm down after her encounter with Charlie. Now she was getting nervous; very nervous. Everything Charlie had said was replaying in her head now, and she had started to wonder if she should have believed him after all, using a very wide definition of 'believe', at least believing that something was wrong.

She didn't want to cause the department to go through a second false alarm today. Everybody would think she was losing her touch, if she created a panic, while Greg was at home, safe and sound. There were no indications that this wasn't the case, save for the babbling of a crazy person. And the fact that Greg didn't pick up his phone.

Sara was walking down the corridor in the lab now, her heart racing, trying to make a decision. She could go to Greg's place and check if he was there. It could mean a relief if he was, but it could also turn out to be nothing if he wasn't there. That wasn't all too unlikely at this time of day either. And if really something was wrong, she would only lose time.

She pulled out her phone again, pressing the button that would dial the last called number again. She heard the phone ringing inside her ear and after the third ring the call was suddenly picked up. Sara's heart skipped a beat, and she let out a breath of relief.

"Greg?" she asked quickly.

There was only silence. Sara had stopped dead in the corridor, listening intently for any sounds at the other side. She got the impression that she could hear every single one of her heart beats, feeling every single one reverberating through her body, but there was no sound coming from the phone, until she heard the click that told her that the call had been disconnected.

Sara was trembling slightly, feeling too weak to stand for a moment, although her legs did not hold the same opinion and kept standing firmly. Her mind felt fuzzy, as she looked around, trying to decide what to do, trying to find something she could do.

She could see Ecklie talking to a lab tech in the distance, and thought about approaching him for a moment, as little as she wanted to do that, but then Nick walked around the corner, and Sara hurried towards him.

"Nick."

Nick stopped, looking at her with a smile. "Hey, Sara, what's going on?"

Sara was trying to find the words to describe what was going on, a difficult task as she was not so sure about that herself yet. She knew that things were wrong though, very wrong.

"It's Greg," she said finally, and Nick's expression grew worried. "Could we-?" Sara went on, and Nick nodded, motioning her to move first into the next room, walking in behind her and closing the door.

Sara sat down in a chair. "You know that I saw Charlie outside the lab today, during the fire alarm?" she asked, and Nick nodded. "He had actually approached me, ran into me, so to say, and he kept talking about Greg. I just wanted to get away and call back-up, but he kept talking and finally said that something was wrong with Greg."

Nick nodded, frowning. "Don't listen to what that nutcase is saying. Greg's fine, I'm sure. I haven't heard anything different."

"Yeah. He wanted me to come with him and I refused, of course, but he said it'd be bad for Greg. I thought the same as you do, that he's just talking crazy."

Her friend's expression had grown apprehensive. "But...?"

"Greg's not answering his phone."

"Many good reasons why he wouldn't."

"Actually, my last call was picked up, but nobody said anything," Sara shook her head. "What am I going to do?" she asked distraughtly.

"We need to check Greg's place, call the others, try to find out where he is," Nick decided.

Sara nodded. "Who are we going to tell?"

"I'll tell Grissom what's going on. He'll keep quiet in case-"

"In case it turns out I'm just going crazy," Sara finished his sentence.

Nick shook his head. "That wasn't what I meant." He walked to the door. "Try calling Greg again. I'll go to Grissom and tell him and then we're off to Greg's place."

"Thanks Nick." Sara looked at him earnestly, taking out her phone again, while Nick left of the room.

She dialed Greg's number again but was only met with the ringing sounds; nobody picked up the call this time. She ended it, and walked out into the corridor. Nick was nowhere in sight, so she tried her phone again. It rang once, but then it went directly to Greg's mailbox, telling her that the phone was out. She heard Greg's voice asking her to leave a message, but she didn't find anything to say at first. The beep had gone by for several seconds, when she finally asked, "Greg, where are you?", but her question was left unanswered.

At this moment Nick was coming back with a determined expression on his face. He nodded. "Grissom knows about it now. He agreed that it's best we go and check at Greg's place."

The pair was silent while they were walking out of the lab on the way to Nick's car. Sara was still trying to find more meaning in Charlie's words, at the same time trying to stay calm, and wondering if she was causing another false alarm right here and now. Now that she had told Nick, she had started doubting the truth of Charlie's statements again. Greg knew Charlie. He would be able to take care of himself; they had agreed to take care not many hours ago.

Nick was about to drive off, he and Sara sitting in his car, when he looked at her, smiling reassuringly. "Greg could be at the movies for all we know. Good reason for not answering his phone."

Sara nodded, trying to believe this was true, not mentioning again that one call had been picked up, but whoever had done that had remained silent.

_'Greg and I had a nice little chat earlier today.' _

Charlie's words were coming out of the back of her mind now, as she went through them again and again. Had Charlie and Greg really been talking? Had Charlie called him, or gone by his place? It wasn't too unlikely, but it didn't mean that anything worse had happened.

'_Stay here or it won't end well for Greg.' _

She shook her head, trying to get the voice to leave. She didn't need this, not here, not know. It had been a ridiculous statement, seemingly being pulled out of the air, unfitting to the drivel that had been said before.

_'You're doing Greg no good.' _

Sara frowned. If Charlie had been telling the truth, she had really done Greg no good, but even if she had believed it, could there have been something she could have done? There was no way she could have done what Charlie told her to do. It wasn't even certain she would have gotten to see Greg at all in that case, not knowing what Charlie had planned to do, whatever that was.

Nick directed the car through the traffic smoothly, and Sara was glad about it, as she was impatient about reaching their destination. They would still need a few minutes and she pulled out her phone again, giving it another try, although she knew it wasn't very likely that it would be answered now. If Greg was near his phone, he would have noticed the unanswered calls and maybe even her mailbox messages; he would have called her back.

They pulled up along the sidewalk near Greg's apartment, and while Nick was still busy parking the car, Sara jumped out and walked swiftly to Greg's place, knowing that Nick would follow her. She jogged up the stairs and stood soon in front of Greg's front door. She rang the bell, knocking at the door additionally in impatience. Nobody answered and Sara's heart sank. She pressed her ear against the door, listening, trying to catch any sound that might originate in the apartment.

She still had not heard anything, when Nick was jogging up the stairs as well and met her with a questioning glance. She shook her head. "No answer."

Nick stopped, looking at the closed door. "We can't just go in there," he voiced what Sara had already been thinking, as little as she liked it. "We don't have any proof that something is wrong. You wouldn't like it either, if we went into your place, while you're at the movies," he added.

Sara frowned. "If anything were wrong, I'd be glad you did," she pointed out, ringing the bell of the apartment again, guessing that it was pointless. They waited for a few more moments, before Nick looked at her, raising his eyebrows and she nodded dejectedly, leading the way downstairs.

"I'm going to call up on some of his friends," Nick said.

"Okay," she returned, wondering what she could do next. She had to admit that she didn't know any of Greg's friends who weren't working at the lab. He might have mentioned one or two, but she had never met them.

Sara still didn't know what to do next, when they were back in Nick's car. She was obviously going to go back with him to the lab; she didn't have another place to go. They didn't have any leads to follow though, nothing that she could work on at the lab, so going to that place did actually not make much more sense than walking through the city at random.

Nick finished a call he had been making, and shook his head, looking at Sara. "He hasn't heard from Greg for at least a week."

Sara nodded, leaning back in her seat. It had been the last contact Nick had on his short list of people he knew to be Greg's friends. None of them had heard anything from him recently, one telling Nick only that Greg and he had been planning to meet up some time, but had not gotten around to it yet.

"I guess we have to go back to work," she said suddenly. "We don't have a case. There's enough work waiting at the lab though. We'll just have to wait and see if Greg turns up for shift tonight." She didn't like what she was saying, but knew it was the truth.

Nick looked at her worriedly. "You're right."

He started the engine and pulled into traffic again, while Sara looked out of the window into the upcoming dusk. In a few hours they would know more. If Greg didn't come to work, they'd know for sure that something was wrong. There was the fear that it could be too late then, but on the other hand, everything might be alright and they would know then as well. And it wasn't like they'd even know where to start looking, if they'd decided to do so now. They could not do anything else than wait, call Greg's phone from time to time, and hope that he would turn up for shift. If he didn't and they got any proof that there was a crime, they would have a new case on their hands.

Sara still hoped that it didn't come to this, although if he was okay, she might just hurt Greg for given her such a fright. She much preferred that scenario.

**TBC**


	19. Shade

**A/N: Here is somebody who should be writing her thesis, but is posting a chapter instead lol. If there is interest, I might even be tempted to write and post more ;) **

**Greg: :S**

**Thanks to Emmithar for the beta! :D**

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**Chapter 19: Shade  
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Greg pushed another button and the sound ringing through his car changed from a high-pitched beeping to a lively tune. Greg still didn't like it though. He went through more of the ring tones of his cell phone, indecisive as to which he liked the most right now. Pondering for a moment, he glanced outside of the car window onto the parking lot not far away from his apartment, having just arrived from night shift.

He returned his attention to the phone, deciding to leave it at the old tone for the time being, and then went quickly through his text messages. Sara had sent him a short one, wishing him a good night. It had surprised him somewhat to receive the message, as this wasn't usual for her, but he had certainly liked it.

Once finished with his messages, Greg was about to return to the ring tones, though debating whether he shouldn't go inside the building instead, when the door on the passenger's side was suddenly opened. Greg looked up surprised, as Charlie moved to sit down next to him.

"What are you-?" Greg started, but stopped at the moment when Charlie pressed a gun against his head.

"Give me the phone, please," he told him. Greg would have almost chuckled at the absurd civility, but handed over the phone instead. "I just want to talk," Charlie went on, and Greg laughed nervously now.

"We can talk without holding guns against our heads, you know."

He could see Charlie frowning, but the other man did not reply, pulling something out of the pocket of his jacket instead, still holding the gun against Greg's hand with the other hand. Greg saw that it was a patch of cloth, followed by a small bottle containing a clear liquid. Greg only dared to look out of the corner of his eyes, unwilling to move under the threat of Charlie's gun. Recognizing some of the warning labels on the bottle, Greg could guess what was to come, suspicious that the flask might contain chloroform. Charlie opened it with one hand, more or less carefully, fidgeting then to drop some of its content on the cloth.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Greg asked worriedly. "If you use too much, it can be fatal."

Charlie only murmured a confirmation, but Greg did not quite believe him.

"You don't need to use that. I'll come along voluntarily, we can talk and nobody needs to get hurt," Greg suggested, but saw that Charlie had finished his task. Before he could say another word, Charlie pushed the gun against Greg's head roughly, stunning him, and put the cloth over Greg's nose and mouth. Greg breathed in the gases quickly, both in panic and confusion and he did not notice anything else before he lost consciousness.

When Greg woke up, it was dark. In his first confusion, he thought for a moment that he had been sleeping in his bed, before the uncomfortableness of his current position told him clearly that this wasn't the case. The jerking of the ground he was lying on and the familiar sounds told him that he was in the trunk of a moving car, probably his own car, he guessed. Realization of what had happened, of what was happening, came to him in a cold shiver. Another jerk let him slide against one side of the trunk and he tried to steady himself, but he was not able to move his arms or legs.

Greg did not have much time to think or worry about what Charlie was going to do, the car stopping only few minutes later in his estimation. He stiffened in apprehension, the fear running through him. He knew that Charlie was able to kill, whether on purpose, like Greg had seen all too clearly when Charlie had wanted to kill Sara, or accidentally, overdosing him on the chloroform. Greg believed that Charlie had little knowledge about the chemical.

Another minute later the trunk was opened, light streaming so suddenly inside that Greg was blinded and he squeezed his eyes shut. Before he could open them again, he felt the cloth over his mouth. Greg held his breath immediately, unwilling to succumb to the darkness again and somewhat worried about the other man using too much of the chemical. The struggle did not last long though, as Greg finally had to breathe and everything became dark once again.

The next time he woke up, he didn't presume himself to be in his comfortable bed. He was once again not able to see anything, but quickly detected him being blindfolded as the cause. He was lying on the floor now, his arms and legs still bound, but he tried to sit up nevertheless.

His movements had apparently alerted Charlie of him being awake, as he could hear the other man's voice.

"Hey, I'm glad you're awake."

In Greg's opinion the other man sounded far too happy. Greg was glad about having woken up as well, not taking that for granted anymore, but as he did not know what the other man was planning, he was fearing the situation all the same, despite, or maybe because of Charlie's insane cheerfulness.

"What do you want?" Greg asked groggily, a nauseating taste still in his mouth, as he managed to sit up and lean against the wall behind him. He did not really expect Charlie to answer his question, having asked just for the sake of it.

"Just to talk," Charlie offered and Greg could hear that the other man had come closer; his voice sounded much nearer now. His reply wasn't what Greg had wanted, if he had expected one at all. He didn't think this would only end in a nice little chat.

"We can't have a good conversation, if we can't even look each other in the eyes," Greg pointed out, hoping Charlie would remove the blindfold. Greg would have liked to be able to see where he was and what the other man was doing at the very least, but Charlie did not give him this solace. He didn't answer at all, and Greg thought tiredly that Charlie's definition of a conversation did apparently not include listening or replying to him.

"Mmh," Charlie voiced suddenly. "I actually don't have time to talk now." He sounded as if he was talking more to himself than to a more and more confused Greg. There was silence for a few moments, before the man went on, "Greg, I need to leave you for a while. I need to go and visit Sara, but I'll be back later."

"Don't," Greg exclaimed, fear pushing adrenaline through his body, speeding his heart. "She doesn't have anything to do with this. We can talk, but leave her alone…please."

"Don't worry about her," Charlie returned, his voice further way now as Greg noticed to his dismay. He didn't have a chance anymore to plead with the man, as he could hear a door open and close a moment later. Greg called after him, but received no reply. He struggled against the bonds, trying to stand up, but failing miserably.

A feeling of panic was running over him and he had to fight it down, trying to calm down, as fears of what Charlie would do were racing through his mind.

It had been mere hours ago that Greg had been talking to Sara. If this whole ordeal hadn't completely messed up with his sense of time, that was. Greg had reminded her to be more careful, knowing that Charlie had called her earlier that day. Greg was afraid that Sara had not really taken it seriously. Of course, he had promised her as well to take care and had not exactly done that. Now he could only hope that Sara would be more careful, although he was afraid this didn't help much, if Charlie planned to kill.

They had been worried about the trial, at first together, then each on their own, when their ways had separated, although none of them had wanted it. The trial had not gone very well, for Greg's reputation at the least. They had found together again nevertheless, only to be jerked out of any peace of mind they had tried to find in each other by Charlie's escape.

It couldn't end like this. Charlie couldn't kill Sara, coming back to Greg later, finishing him off as his last act. It could only be a cruel joke, the insane man returning after they had survived the madness before.

Greg tried to stand up once again, calling for help now. Apparently nobody was hearing him. He could only sit there, waiting and worrying.

After what seemed like hours, he could hear his phone start ringing, recognizing the tone he had chosen to stay with after playing around with it that morning.

It seemed to lie a good distance away from him, but Greg started to move towards it. It went slowly, as he could only trust his ears as to where he was going, still dizzy from the drug. He slid forward on his knees on what he believed to be a wooden floor. Finally he thought to be near the phone and when it started ringing once again, he could hear the sound over his head. He managed to stand up arduously, having difficulty to stay balanced, feeling the world turning around him although he wasn't even able to see it. Greg found the phone still out of his reach though, not able to lift his bound arms high enough.

Disappointed, he made his way back to where he had been when Charlie left. He wasn't sure whether it would be helpful, if Charlie was reminded of the fact that he was still able to move somewhat around. The man might get the idea to fix that problem, literally, so Greg preferred to pretend that he had not moved at all.

His phone rang several times over the course of the next hour or two, somebody apparently wanting to call him urgently. Greg had soon assembled the worst scenarios of why somebody would want to call him so urgently. There was an emergency. Something had happened to Sara... The phone started once again and Greg cried out in frustration and dread.

At this moment he could hear the door open and close, and steps making their way through the room quickly. The ringing of the phone stopped suddenly, and Greg guessed that it had been shut off.

**TBC**


	20. Solely

**A/N: Thanks to Em for the beta again :)**

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Chapter 20: Solely**

The clock had struck midnight, but there was no Greg.

Sara had marched through the whole lab, looking into the locker room, the showers, the DNA lab, trace, the morgue, but had not seen him anywhere. She had even waited in front of the restrooms for a few minutes, but her apprehension has already reached a new high then.

Something had happened. She had feared it before, but now it was almost certain.

She had tried calling him again, but all her calls had gone directly to voicemail. She knew that there could still be other explanations for Greg's absence and unavailability. A coincidental occurrence like that on the same day as Charlie's performance was highly unlikely though. She should have believed him. That was the simple fact and Sara did not really know how to deal with the other fact that she had not. She hadn't been any help to Greg.

The more rational argument that she had tried all she could and had been reasonably suspicious of what Charlie had been saying, tried to make its way into her mind, but the feeling of guilt was overwhelming. Had she only thought of herself, when Charlie had told her about Greg? Had she not wanted to believe his tale because she feared for her own safety? If she had believed him, she would have been torn about the decision whether to follow Charlie or not. Had she just not wanted to be in that position? If so, it had certainly not been consciously, but had such feelings played a role in the back of her mind?

Sara did not know, but tried to put those questions away, when she stormed down the corridor on the way to Grissom's office. She did not stop to knock or announce herself in any other way, but simply opened the door, walking into the office quickly. Grissom looked up surprised.

"Is Greg here?" he asked, his face showing the suspicion that his question would be answered in the negative.

"No, he's not."

Grissom just looked at her for a second, before he nodded. "I'll call Brass."

"What are we going to do?" The question Sara actually wanted to ask was what she could do.

"I'll talk to Brass," Grissom returned gravely. "I'm sure he'll want to talk to you, too."

As Sara didn't reply to that, he reached for his phone, while her stomach tightened. She had forgotten about Brass. He had basically told her to come to him if there was anything else about her run-in with Charlie that he needed to know. He had guessed that something was wrong. What would she tell him? She didn't know where Greg was. She couldn't tell Brass anything useful. Only that it was Charlie's doing.

She heard Grissom talking to Brass on the phone, but had already missed most of the conversation, lost in thought. Grissom finished the call and stood up.

"Brass will be here as soon as he can. He's going to tell patrol to keep a look out for Charlie, but they're doing that anyway."

Sara nodded, about to move out of the room.

"Brass is going to meet you here," Grissom intervened and Sara stopped dead. She nodded again and moved to sit down at the sole chair in his office besides the one he had been using.

It reminded her of the fact that he wasn't even her supervisor anymore; that was Ecklie now. So as a matter of fact, she should have gone to Ecklie with her problem. On the other hand, Grissom was Greg's supervisor, so anything concerning him should be told to the night shift supervisor. Of course, Sara knew that she would have never gone to Ecklie, even if Greg were working for him, too. It wasn't like Ecklie would not have been supportive in the situation; he had been when Nick had been kidnapped. But Sara felt that she had made a mistake, had really harmed Greg, as Charlie had said she would do. She couldn't go to Ecklie with this.

Remembering Nick's kidnapping, she started once again to wonder what had actually happened. Was Charlie holding Greg captive? As bad as this would be, it would at least mean there was still a chance. If Charlie had killed him... there wasn't.

Grissom had left his office, leaving Sara alone to her thoughts and fears. She tried to come up with a plan of action. They would have to go to Greg's apartment and look for any signs of where he could have gone. She wasn't even sure they already permitted to enter it, seeing that this was technically still no missing person case. Only Charlie's vague statement, passed on by Sara, could induce them to officially look for Greg before at least another twelve hours were gone.

Additionally, she dreaded going into Greg's apartment. What if Charlie had gone there and they'd only find Greg's body now? Swallowing she realized that it was maybe a good thing that Grissom and any rule ever written would forbid her to work the case.

Not that Sara would particularly care about that, as the situation was. But knowing that there wasn't much she could do anyway, she slumped down in the chair resigned.

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A few moments after Greg had heard the door being opened and his phone being shut off, he could feel the blindfold being removed and blinked against the sudden light. He could see Charlie standing a few paces away from him and realized now where he was. It was the same cabin to which Charlie had abducted Sara. The man had clearly no new ideas, Greg thought bitterly.

On the other hand, the detection gave Greg a small shimmer of hope. If it would be noticed that he was gone and if somebody suspected Charlie to have his hands in Greg's disappearance, somebody might check this place out. There were too many 'ifs' for Greg's preference, but he still dared to hope.

"I'm back," Charlie declared the obvious now, sitting down on the floor opposite of Greg, looking at him. "It was kind of a waste of time though," he said.

"What did you do?" Greg asked seemingly neutrally, actually longing to know that Sara was okay.

"Visited Sara, as I said I would." Charlie shrugged.

Greg hesitated for a moment. "What did you do?" he repeated his question.

Charlie laughed. "You remember how I got out of jail?"

Greg was thrown off by the sudden change of topic, but nodded. "There was a fire."

"Yeah, caused by a short circuit," Charlie explained to Greg's confusion.

"How do you-?"

"It was me, who did it." Charlie sounded quite satisfied, and Greg only stared at him, not having expected that.

"People died," he pointed out finally.

"Not my doing," the other man returned. "I didn't kill them."

"The fire you caused did."

"The fire did, not I."

Greg gave up on arguing with Charlie's screwed sense of logic. The man wasn't rational. "So what about Sara?" he asked impatiently. Charlie stared at him and Greg wondered for a moment where the gun had actually gone. He wasn't able to see it anywhere.

"We're just talking here, so don't get so worked up," Charlie scolded him. "So the fire at jail got me out, so I figured I could try the same to get Sara out."

"What?" Greg exclaimed, terrible visions of blazing flames at the lab invading his mind.

"No real fire this time," Charlie shrugged. "But I called in a fire. They had a nice little alarm going on."

Greg was stunned; dread overcoming him once again when he realized what had been going on. If Sara had been at the lab, she would have had to go outside because of the alarm. That had been Charlie's opportunity.

"So I met Sara and we talked. She wasn't very interested though, worried more about her boring files," he went on. "I told her about you."

"What did you say?" Greg asked, the idea running through his head. He did not believe Charlie had told Sara that he was holding Greg captive. Police would be all over the place by now, if he had.

"I told her that I have you here, but she didn't really care."

"I don't believe you," Greg said simply. If Sara knew, he wouldn't be in this situation anymore. Unless she had been kept from telling what she knew...

"I even told her that it wouldn't end well for you, but she just walked off," Charlie continued.

"What do you mean, not end well?" Greg dared to ask, still trying to process Charlie's information, trying to assess if there was any truth in them.

"Don't worry about that yet," the other man replied, and Greg wondered why he would worry any less about it, just because it might he a few hours away. "But you can see that Sara wasn't really worth it. When you think of all the trouble we had because of her..."

"Okay, I get your point," Greg said, hoping to find a reconciliatory way with Charlie. "What about getting rid of these bonds? We could go on talking more comfortably then. I mean, you can let me go. I get your point about Sara; no need for any more trouble for any of us. We had enough of it as you said." Greg knew that he was reaching, but nobody could blame him for trying.

Charlie shook his head. "No, that's not the plan." He stood up. "You're right. We had a lot of trouble because of Sara, but I had a lot of trouble because of you, too. You told the cops, I went to jail. I don't know if Sara made you do that or if it was your idea."

Greg didn't know what to say.

"You see, if it was your idea... then we aren't friends anymore." Charlie stated it like it was a natural thing, pacing a few steps to the right, turning to look at Greg again then.

Greg looked at him numbly. The gun was still nowhere in sight, so he guessed that Charlie was not planning to shoot him here and now. He didn't know what else the man was planning though.

"I know an easy way to find out," Charlie told him, walking the few paces back to the left he had gone to the right before, Greg watching him apprehensively. "If it was all Sara's doing, tell me, and we're going to get rid of that problem once and for all. If it was your idea, tell me, and we can end it here."

Greg tore his gaze away from the other man, biting on his lip. He knew what he had to say and what it would mean. There was no way that he could make Sara the goal of Charlie's wrath any more. He did not want it on himself either though. He had been feeling guilty for many things recently. He had considered it partly his fault what Charlie had done to Sara, although he had never, officially, been accused of it. He had not done anything purposely, or willingly, but he knew that he was the reason for what had happened. Nevertheless, he wasn't willing to pay that price. He still hoped that his friends would notice his disappearance soon enough, would realize the connection, would come to check the cabin.

"So what's your answer?" Charlie interrupted his thoughts. "Tell me it was Sara's idea. She isn't worth it; you don't need to lie for her. She doesn't even care about what's going on with you." He paused for a moment. "You know where she lives. We can go and finish her off easily enough. One word from you and we're on the way."

Greg looked at him silently. The man could not really expect him to agree, could he? "If my answer is that it was my idea, will you leave Sara alone?" He hoped he could at least make sure of that...

"It was your idea?" Charlie tried to clarify, not answering Greg's question.

Greg nodded, swallowing.

Charlie sighed. He looked at Greg sadly for a few moments, before he straightened. "You know, I like the whole fire thing. It helped me two times so far." He went over to a shelf where Greg's cell phone was lying, putting it into the pocket of his jacket. "The first time, a fire got me out of jail." He stepped towards the window on the other side of the room. "The second time the fire alarm got Sara out of the lab. At the end it told me what I needed to know." Pulling a lighter out of the pocket of his trousers, he crouched down, holding it to the curtains at the window. "And now for the third time, it's going to solve a problem." The curtain caught fire and Charlie stepped away from it quickly.

Greg had tried to get his attention while he had been doing all of this, but Charlie had ignored him. While the flames were already making their way up the curtains, Charlie stepped towards the door, Greg still calling after him.

"Where are you going?" he asked, panic rising in him.

"Well, I'm going to Mexico," Charlie answered him simply, opening the door, while Greg struggled against his bonds.

"Get me out of here, please, Charlie, come on."

"Adiós."

The other man stepped out of the cabin and closed the door behind him. Greg could hear him turning the key in the lock, while smoke was already filling the air inside. The flames had reached the ceiling by now, Greg still struggling, knowing that he would not even be able to open the door if his hands were free, but still trying to find a way out, the wave of panic shooting through him.

**TBC**


	21. Still

_**A/N: Thanks to those who reviewed and thanks to Emmithar for the beta! :D**_

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**Chapter 21: Still**

Sara had been sitting and pondering for a few minutes, when she could hear steps coming into the room and she knew it was Grissom even before he had said anything.

"Sara?"

She looked around and saw Brass standing in the door next to Grissom.

"You want to stay here or go somewhere else?" he asked.

"I'm going to get some coffee," Grissom announced, moving out of the office again, leaving the detective alone with Sara.

"What did Charlie Brody say?" Brass started, and Sara was glad he didn't begin with any accusations, as she had not told him the truth before.

"He said he'd been talking to Greg. That I wasn't doing Greg any good by not cooperating with him. That it wouldn't end well for Greg." She said everything quickly, wanting to have it over with.

"And you didn't think it was worth mentioning this before?"

Sara felt the sting as the questioning started after all. "I didn't think he was telling the truth. He was talking about a lot of nonsense. I really felt he was making things up."

"Do you have any idea what happened? Is there anything else you remember? Anything Brody said, or Greg?"

She shook her head. "Greg worked last night. I saw him briefly, before he went home. I've been trying to call him, but he won't pick up. Well, once the call was picked up, but I don't know by whom; nobody said anything."

"And Greg was supposed to work tonight?"

This time she nodded. "Yeah, he's scheduled, and he told me he would come in."

"Grissom told me Nick and you were at Greg's place?"

"We were there, but he wasn't there as far as we could tell. We didn't go in, of course."

Brass nodded. "Any idea where Greg left his car?"

"He usually parks it near his place, at the parking lot." She knew they could check if it was there and start a search for it, in case it wasn't and Greg was officially missing.

The detective looked at her sternly. "You know I care about Greg."

Sara frowned, wondering why he was telling her that.

"I'm just saying so you don't have any misgivings about it," he answered her unasked question.

"Why-?"

Brass glanced into the hallway and seeing that nobody was there, he turned back to her. "When I asked Greg about Brody recently, you gave me the impression that I was somehow going against Greg."

His meaning dawned on Sara. "You think I didn't tell you what Charlie said because of that?"

Brass lifted his eyebrows. "Didn't say that. Just wanting to make sure we know everything there is to know."

At this moment Grissom returned, carrying two cups of coffee. Nick was coming right behind him, and the two men distracted Brass' attention while Sara was still brooding over what he had said. She knew in her heart that this had not been the reason why she had not told Brass. Yes, she had been angry before, because she had felt that Brass had been implying that Greg knew anything about Charlie's flight. But at the end of the day she knew the detective to be competent, and if she had believed Greg to be in danger, she would have told Brass about it.

She looked at Nick, remembering that he had carried about hard feelings against Greg as well, until he had come to his senses...

Sara's thoughts broke off there, everything that had happened coming back to her mind clearly, a sudden feeling of certainty following... she knew where Greg was.

"I think I know where Greg is," she said, jumping up, and the three men looked at her in surprise. "At the cabin, I think Charlie has taken him to the cabin. The guy isn't very bright. He'll just pull the same thing again."

Still everybody was looking at her, until Brass said. "Can't hurt checking it out."

"I'll go," Sara said quickly.

"You go with me, if at all," Brass decided.

"I'll come, too," Nick intervened.

Grissom decided to stay and call them if any information reached the lab that they needed to know, and Brass, Nick and Sara made their way out, Nick and Sara using one car.

Sara had not felt so energetic the whole day like she did now. She was anxious, sure that she was right, sure that they would find Greg there. She was afraid as well, yes, but she pushed that feeling away, hoping that they were quick enough. Brass had called in reinforcements that were driving ahead to the cabin to deal with Charlie if he was there. Sara knew that she and Nick were not far behind.

They had left the city, driving up a dark road through the woods now, and Sara pulled out her phone, trying Greg's number again just for the sake of it. She could not wait to hear his voice, could not wait to see him, hoping that he was alright. Her call went directly to voice mail once again, but Sara did not bother leaving another message.

She knew that they were not far from the cabin now and looked ahead on the street, waiting to see the turn that would lead to it. They took another bend and Sara could see light over the edge of the trees in the distance.

Light blazing, fire blazing... something was in flames...

Nick glanced at her, Sara paling as the realization hit her. The cabin was on fire. If Greg was still in there...

"We don't know if Greg was even there," Nick said firmly, interrupting the silence, obviously trying to make her believe what he did not even dare to do. This could not be a coincidence. That the cabin was burning down showed clearly that Sara's guess had been right. Charlie had been here. And so had Greg...

Nick called the fire in and they took the last curves till their destination. They drove up some distance away from the cabin, two police cars parked somewhat closer. Sara wasn't sure if she wanted to go there quickly or not at all, until the car came to a stop and she simply jumped out, running ahead of the others towards the cabin.

It was fully engulfed in flames. She knew there was nothing they could do.

Sara looked around and saw Nick talking to the police officers who had arrived at the scene minutes before the two CSI's. They were shaking their heads and Sara knew that the fire had not been considerably smaller when they had arrived.

Nick came over to her, while she was staring into the flames. He put his arm around her shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

"Maybe he wasn't here after all." Her voice sounded distant to her.

"I'm afraid he was." Nick said it simply, but there was no doubt in his voice and she turned to face him, tears in her eyes now. He held up the wallet, opening it slightly so that she could see Greg's driver's license inside, showing a beaming picture of a younger Greg.

"Jeff found it," Nick motioned to the young police officer.

Sara nodded, turning away from him and from the flames. She saw that Brass had arrived as well now. Unwilling to face him she turned back to the building, Nick still at her side.

"Fire department is going to be here soon."

She nodded only warily to his statement. It was the second time she was waiting for them to come in the course of twenty-four hours. This time there was actually a fire. But this time they would be too late. Sara knew that there was no chance for survival for anyone still inside the cabin. Even if the flames had not killed yet, the smoke surely had.

She didn't hear Nick's next statement, but shook only her head, walking away from him, intend on making her way around the cabin. She did not know why. The other sides of the building would not look any better. It would not make any difference. Maybe she just wanted to be alone.

She stepped over bushes that surrounded the building, staying clear out of reach of the flames though. She came to the right side of the cabin, the flames working nearly as strongly there as at the front.

She tried to imagine what had happened. Charlie had taken Greg captive, had brought him here, and then? She did not know if Charlie was still inside the building as well, or if he had left after the fire had started, probably induced by him. If he had kept Greg captive, Greg had probably been tied up, hadn't been able to move around, hadn't had any chance to escape the flames if Charlie had left him behind... Sara's throat felt as if she was choking...

She looked closer and saw a broken window at the side of the building. She wasn't able to see into the cabin though. Without really knowing what she was doing she stepped nearer. The window was clear of flames as of yet.

She knew there was no chance. That Greg was in there was the bitter reality she had to accept. He was in there and she was outside here, and there wasn't anything she could do for him anymore. Still she stared at the window, her mind racing, while her body felt numb, almost absent.

**TBC**


	22. Slowly

_**A/N: Thanks to those who reviewed and to Em for the beta again (remaining mistakes are mine). This is the last chapter of my longest fic so far lol. As Em has lobbied for it ;-) , I'm considering a continuation of this fic. This wouldn't be started before well into next year though, as there's another big writing project that needs to be done first. **_

_**I hope you enjoy! :) **_

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**_**Chapter 22: Slowly**

Greg stared at the flames that were making their way through the room, smoke filling the cabin already to a greater extent. He moved his arms hastily, trying to keep the panic down. He knew he didn't have a chance if he did not manage to free himself. The bonds did not want to give in though. Greg looked around the room once again, trying to come up with an idea. He was glad Charlie had at least removed the blindfold earlier. It was a nightmarish idea to imagine sitting there and knowing the flames were coming closer but not even able to see them, or any way out.

His present situation wasn't much better though, knowing that the door was locked, while the smoke that was floating through the room started to irritate his throat. Parts of burned curtain were now falling to the ground and Greg was worried the floor would quickly start burning as well.

Making a decision, he moved forward arduously. Still dizzy, he finally reached the window opposite the one Charlie had set fire to, a table with two chairs standing right under it. Greg needed a moment to steady himself, but then he moved backwards onto the table, sliding closer to the window carefully, having a good look at the flames at the other side of the room. Greg still wished the bonds on his arms would loosen, as this would make his task so much easier, but at least he was able to see what he was doing, an advantage he had not had when Charlie had left for the first time earlier that day.

Greg sat with his back to the window now and turned around, still carefully, as he would not be able to grab a hold of anything, if he should fall backwards from the table. Leaning back, he smashed his feet against the window. The first blow was not enough, but the next cracked the pane and the third shattered it. Greg cried out as glass splinters cut into his legs, though most of the force was caught by his shoes.

He worked on the pane some more, kicking and removing more of the glass shards with his still bound feet. The contrast of the cold air he could feel outside to the heat inside told him only more clearly that he needed to hurry. He wasn't keen on moving through the broken window though, unwilling to cut himself any further, but knew he didn't have much of a choice. Once he deemed the hole in the pane to be large enough, he dropped outside with a swift move, landing on his feet, the broken glass that was lying on the ground outside crunching under his shoes.

He sat down, careful to avoid the glass, trying to catch his breath, as the fresh night air filled his lungs. He could have cried out in relief.

After he had been sitting there for a few minutes, he moved towards the glass on the ground, trying to pick up a single shard. He managed to get a hold of one and worked vigilantly to rip the rope that bound his hands. He struggled with it for a few minutes, the sliver of glass cutting into his flesh as he cut through the rest of his bonds.

Moving his tired and aching arms forward, he freed his legs as well. He looked back into the cabin and saw that the inside was fully filled with smoke now. He doubted he would have stayed alive in there for very much longer. Greg shivered, not knowing if it was because of his thoughts or because the coldness of the night was getting to him.

After a few moments he came to his senses and decided he needed to move away from the burning and probably soon collapsing cabin. He got to his feet, wishing he could have remained sitting there, so wobbly did his legs feel.

He walked a few steps slowly, wondering where to go. He didn't have his phone anymore, Charlie having taken it with him. He didn't know how far away the next house was. What he knew was the direction he would have to go, if he wanted to get closer to the city, the lights lighting up the sky enough to be visible even from out here. It was probably his best alternative, although he didn't feel up to any lengthy trip.

Despite the dizziness and the wobbly feeling in his legs, the bump on his head, the small cuts on his legs and the larger ones on his hands, and the slightly nauseating feeling that still lingered from the drug, he had to admit that he was not too bad off. It could have been much worse, that was the simple truth. He didn't put anything past Charlie at this point anymore. The man might have argued that the fire would have killed Greg, but then he would have argued in a similar way if he had simply shot Greg, probably reasoning that it wasn't him, but the bullet that killed Greg.

A fair distance away from the cabin now, Greg paused to look around. He wondered if people were looking for him. He was sure it was past midnight, so the lab would have noticed that he had not turned up for shift. Of course he didn't think this would be enough to prompt a search. If Sara had indeed encountered Charlie earlier that day, the incident should have alerted the department. Charlie had even claimed he had told Sara about his actions, but Greg still was not sure about the truth of this statement.

He hoped that Sara was alright. Judging from Charlie's behavior and demands, he could tell that she was at least well enough to prompt Charlie to want to worsen her condition. By this logic, she was probably fine, but Greg wondered what she really knew about his situation.

Charlie's claims that she didn't care were ridiculous, that Greg could tell even in his most pessimistic thoughts. He could imagine any kind of negative feelings Sara would have towards him, but he was sure she would still care at least a little if something happened to him.

Marching on, the coldness got to him more and more. He realized that it was a whole different thing to be outside without any additional clothing if one had to walk, as opposed to drive comfortably in a car. Looking ahead to the city lights, he saw that he had still miles to go.

Step after step, he started to wonder if he did not deserve this after all. He had drawn so many people into the whole Charlie disaster. Maybe that was why they did not care anymore. Maybe they figured Greg could deal with Charlie on his own, as they were once such great buddies. Perhaps that was why nobody was looking for him, and why Sara had not told them what Charlie had said, why she had not cared enough about it. Maybe she had told the team, but they had decided that it was Greg's problem, not theirs. Greg was not quite sure that he could blame them.

He shivered, holding his arms pressed tightly around his torso, having lost feeling of his steps by now, his legs moving almost automatically. He was walking alongside a dark road now, staying clear of it though, unwilling to have a car crash into him as the next highlight of the night. He wanted his warm bed. He wanted something to drink and eat, unable to remember the last time he had tasted any food. He wanted to sit down and rest, but kept walking because resting would not get him back to the city any faster. He was so sunken in gloomy thoughts, that he did not notice the lights at first, and when he did, they had moved past him so fast, that he could only see the tail lights of the cars when he looked up.

His mind took a few moments to register what he had seen, but then the fact dawned on him that it had been police cars. Pondering what this meant for his situation, he kept standing nailed to the spot, still offside the road. Then another car came along the street quickly, the lights blinding Greg.

He looked after this car as well. Maybe they were looking for him after all, or maybe the fire at the cabin had been noticed and the police was about to check it out. In any way, Greg figured that it was the best thing now to make his way back to the cabin, hoping to catch any of the police officers here. Maybe they could give him a ride or call at least somebody who could. Greg turned and walked the way back he had come along earlier.

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Sara was still staring into the flames, when she heard her name being called from the front of the house.

They were worrying about her. Sara wondered if they thought she would be stupid enough to make her way inside the cabin after all. She could not exclude that she would have done so, if she had seen at least a small chance that Greg was still alive. Seeing the whole cabin in flames though, she knew this wasn't the case. Charlie had accomplished his last feat.

Sara brought her hand to her mouth, unsure if she felt like vomiting or crying out, as a sob escaped her, just as her name was called again. Steadying herself, she turned and moved ahead, walking back to the front of the building dejectedly, trying to stop the tears. She knew she wouldn't be able to keep herself from crying, she didn't even want to, but she didn't want to do it on front of the others. She could let it run freely once she was alone again.

"Sara," she heard Nick calling again and stepping out behind some trees, she saw her friend smiling at her. She was aghast at his expression for a moment, before she looked behind him and saw Brass handing Greg a bottle of water that the younger man opened greedily.

"Look who's here," Nick said, beaming and Sara just stared at the scene in front of her. Greg glanced at her, then took a gulp from the water bottle, before he walked over to her and Nick slowly.

"Where did you come from?" Sara asked, blurting, cursing herself silently afterwards.

She really could have come up with something else than a pushy, insensitive question that had to show everybody just how much she cared.

"I was on my way back to the city when I saw you coming," Greg answered, while she looked over him, taking in his exhausted appearance and the bruises and cuts on his arms and hands.

She nodded. "You're bleeding."

Greg glanced at his hands. "Not really anymore." He appeared somewhat distant to her. He also seemed to avoid looking her in the eyes, causing a sting in Sara.

"You should have somebody looking at those cuts," Nick intervened.

"Uh, it's okay. Don't worry about it," he shrugged. "I just need a ride, if it isn't a problem."

"I think Brass is going to want to talk to you first." Nick nodded towards the detective who was talking to the police officers.

Greg nodded. "Yeah, I already told him... some things, and he said he'd want to talk to me later." He turned to where Brass was standing.

"He can come with us," Sara said suddenly. Nick lifted his eyebrows and Sara realized that she seemed to be talking more to Nick than to Greg.

She didn't understand the distance that she felt between Greg and her. She was glad, very glad that he was alright, comparatively at least. If he hadn't been... she didn't know how she could have lived with the knowledge that they had been too late because she hadn't acted quickly enough... had simply not used information she had had early enough...

Maybe Greg thought so, too. Maybe he knew that Charlie had told her what had happened, maybe even that Sara had simply walked off.

Nick looked at Greg. "Sure," he nodded to Sara's suggestion.

Greg nodded as well and they made their way to the car in silence that was only interrupted by the sounds and shouts of the fire department that was trying to extinguish the fire that was still feeding on the remains of the cabin and threatened to jump over to the woods.

Nick was driving again and Greg had taken the passenger seat, so Sara sat in the back and listened to the words Nick and Greg were exchanging. Greg was tired of course, so the conversation was not very animated. Still, even for the explainable exhaustion Greg seemed to be overly quiet with Nick and with her even more so.

Feeling guilty, Sara realized only now that she had no idea what had happened. They had not had time to talk about it yet, and neither had they wanted to push Greg, both Nick and Sara still too shocked and relieved at the same time. But it meant they didn't really know anything. And Sara urgently wanted to know things, wanted to know what Greg... knew, what he thought, how he felt.

When they arrived back at the lab, Grissom met them at the entrance, and they motioned Greg into the break room. Brass ushered Sara and Nick out though to ask Greg some more questions, having questioned him very briefly at the cabin. Sara knew that Charlie had fled, was apparently on the way to Mexico. Brass had already initiated a search.

Sara returned to the break room just after Brass had finished. Giving her a small smile he walked out, while Sara slipped into the room, carrying a first aid box.

Greg stood up, glanced at her and seemed to sway between staying and going.

"We need to take care of your hands." Sara approached him.

Greg leaned against the table, looking at the cuts. "You don't need to bother yourself. They're not even bleeding anymore."

"They need to be cleaned," she insisted and set the box next to him on the table. She opened it, but didn't move to start the task. "I'm so sorry."

"I'm fine. Don't worry."

Sara said nothing, but stared at the contents of the first aid kit, wondering how she could look Greg into the eyes.

"I'm sorry for drawing you all into this mess..." he said.

Sara looked at him quickly, her expression sharp. "Greg..."

"I can understand that you didn't want to have anything to do with it anymore..."

Sara shook her head, taking his left hand and starting to clean the cuts that were spread all over it.

"Charlie told me," she said quietly, while she was working. Maybe she said it right at this moment, because she knew it was unlikely that Greg would walk off while she was busy cleaning his wounds. "But I didn't believe him."

"He wanted you to come with him?" Greg questioned, wincing.

Sara nodded, letting go of his hand and taking gauze bandage out of the box.

"I'm glad you didn't believe him."

Sara bit on her lip, pretending to focus on applying the bandage, but really suppressing her tears.

"If you had believed him... you would have done what he said, wouldn't you? He would have killed you." Greg said the last sentence very quietly, while Sara fixed the bandage.

"He almost killed you."

Greg held up his right hand as Sara proceeded to clean and bandage the cuts on it as well, her hands shaking now. She didn't know what else to say, her throat being tight. She took hold of his hand; it felt good to have it in hers, working carefully to help him, being still able to do that. But she couldn't forget the fear; it was still too close.

"Keep still," she said, when he winced and drew his hand back slightly. She looked up and saw that Greg was watching her closely. She smiled a small smile at him, if only to reassure herself.

Greg took her hand now, leaning forward to kiss her. Sara hesitated in surprise, but responded, laying the gauze away for now, wrapping her arms around him. She smiled again and Greg returned the expression.

"I..." she started. "-don't..." She didn't really know what she wanted to say, apart from that she didn't know what to do, or say, or feel.

"Sara?"

She didn't know if they were going into the right direction, if she was doing the right thing. So far everything had been so complicated, so difficult...

"It's complicated," she said, and it sounded lame to her ears.

Greg nodded. "I know."

Sara drew back, taking the bandage again, intend on finishing her task. She wrapped the material around his hand.

"I think I like complicated," he added.

Sara nodded, finishing the last bandage.

**The End **


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